


Nicholas Redux

by copperbadge



Series: The Rulesverse [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: M/M, Torchwood: Rules & Procedures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-23
Updated: 2008-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 08:46:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/696451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Jack disappears, Torchwood hires a new tea boy -- someone to fetch and carry and take some of the burden off Ianto's shoulders. Nicholas knows his place is in the shadows, but he watches and listens as the dramas of Torchwood play out around him. And he learns all the rules.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"There are some things you need to know," Mr. Jones says, and his voice and face are very serious. Nicholas has, up until now, thought that Jones was rather fun; he chuckled twice during Nicholas's first interview, and took him to a pub for his second one, and for his third one took him on a long walk round Cardiff. Now there is no hint of amusement in his face, and Nicholas knows that he has the job.

The words rush over him in a blur, though. _There's no leaving this job; if you're in, you're in for life. If you go, you won't remember. Anything. Your hours will be irregular, and you can give up on a social life except whatever you can catch on the fly. There will be mortal peril. You will clean things you never knew existed out of the most improbable places. You will catalogue things you don't know the meaning or construction of. You will learn to use computers that haven't been invented yet._

All he can think about is calling his girlfriend. And he wonders if Mr. Jones is a mind-reader, because at the end Mr. Jones smiles.

"You will have a two week trial period. During this time you will not tell anyone you have been hired. At any time, if you are unsatisfied, or we are unsatisfied, you will be given this."

Nicholas eyes the white pill that Mr. Jones puts between them, as if it might explode.

"And you will forget that any of this happened."

Nicholas nods, eyes still on the pill.

"Are you in?"

Nicholas nods again. "I'm in."

Mr. Jones looks quite sad, somehow.

"Welcome to Torchwood, Nicholas."

***

_We do not mess with the rift._   
_No, really, **we do not mess with the rift.**_

Nicholas's first day is amazing. There is a pterodactyl that he's itching to study. There's an archive full of alien technology, a supercomputer, a secret base underground. Everywhere he looks he is filled with wonder, and the only dark spot is that nobody else seems to understand why. They're all waiting for him to show some other emotion, but Nicholas has no room in his heart for anything but curious fascination and joy. 

The team of interviewers who vetted him after his first meeting with Mr. Jones are introduced again, and he realises that they are not the Human Resources department, they are the entire operation. There is a ghost among them too; his name is Jack, and Nicholas assumes he was the last man to fill this position. They all talk around the mysterious Jack, carefully. Maybe he died.

"Do you have any questions?" Mr. Jones asks at the end of the day. "Anything unclear?"

Nicholas bites his lip. 

"Go on then."

"If we aren't allowed to use it, why is it called a Rift Manipulator?" he asks. "Doesn't it Manipulate the Rift?"

Mr. Jones gives him a sort of perplexed look.

"That's what you want to know?" he asks. 

"Well, that and, I mean. Who's in charge? I thought it was you, but you take an awful lot of backtalk from Doctor Harper if so."

A gentle smile. "Gwen's in charge. Owen is the senior agent. Tosh ranks with Owen, and I am the dogsbody. If you've been sucking up, it's definitely been to the wrong man."

Nicholas grins a bit at this and goes back to the hotel that night -- Torchwood paying, until his trial period is over -- and doesn't even think about how deftly Mr. Jones waltzed him around the question he wanted to ask.

***

_We do not put pizza boxes on top of alien artefacts even if there is no other room on our desk._   
_We do not put pizza boxes on top of Jack's biology experiment simply because there is a heat lamp there._

Nobody is allowed in Jack's office but Mr. Jones. Nicholas doesn't think it's a spoken agreement, it's just, nobody else ever goes in there. He's realised, without managing to make an ass of himself, that "Jack" is Captain Jack Harkness, the head of the branch. He's vanished; Gwen Cooper has been kicked up to leader, and Mr. Jones has had to step up to fill the empty place on the team. Nicholas is doing Mr. Jones's job. 

Except for this. If there is a file in Jack's Office, or if something needs to be fetched from there or the safe needs to be accessed, Mr. Jones goes to do it. Nicholas _has_ been told he needn't tidy there in the course of his duties. Not that there's ever anything to tidy, in an office that nobody goes into.

The third day of his trial period, he stops in the doorway. It's late, and the others have gone; he's been catching up on the archival backlog, which is the result of turning your archivist into a field agent. 

Mr. Jones is in the office, standing in front of the desk, looking down at a bit of coral under a lamp. He has a clipboard in his hand.

"Come in; it's all right," he says, without looking up. Nicholas leans in the doorway, not entirely certain it is.

"What are you doing?" Nicholas asks.

"Tending the Captain's experiments. Wouldn't do to have him come back and all his plants dead, eh?" Mr. Jones says. Under it is the current that seems to link up all four of his new colleagues -- _if he comes back at all._

"That's an experiment?" Nicholas asks, nodding at the coral.

"Apparently so. It's precious to him. I don't know why."

Nicholas likes Mr. Jones immensely, and it confuses him that the dry-witted man training him is sometimes so very unhappy. He wonders why.

***

_We do not **microwave anything in tinfoil**. You are all certified geniuses. Learn cause and effect._

On his fifth day, Doctor Harper blows up the microwave. Mr. Jones rolls his eyes and goes to Petty Cash for a new one, but Nicholas can sense that Doctor Harper is testing him. He picks up the microwave, studies it, jimmies the back off, and sets to work.

"I like him," he hears Doctor Sato say later, to PC Cooper. (He hasn't quite got the hang of calling them Tosh and Gwen in his head yet; he doesn't think he'll ever be able to call Mr. Jones by his first name.) 

Nicholas warms to the compliment, and redoubles his efforts. 

***

_We do not smoke anything found growing in the cells even if we are 100% certain we know what it is and if ~~Suzie~~ Ianto ever finds out who planted it, there will be Words._

Nicholas goes back to the hotel every night with the vision of the white pill in his head. There are other visions now: Doctor Harper patching up Mr. Jones after a Weevil attack, Jones sleepy and dull from the painkillers; Gwen (he's managed now, it's hard not to with Gwen) with slime all over her, laughing because the slime is just slightly psychotropic; Doctor Sato's fingers moving on the computer keys so fast that Nicholas wonders if she's on speed.

But mostly it's the little white pill.

***

_We do not steal Owen's surgical gloves. They are not Marigolds, balloons, or insulation._   
_~~We do not switch off the oxygen feed on Suzie's welding rig simply because she makes amusing faces when she is annoyed.~~ _

On the seventh day, Torchwood did not rest, and Nicholas got his first look at a real live alien. It was a giant bug, and it bit him. That was unpleasant. 

"Did you see it?" he asks excitedly, trying not to move as Doctor Harper puts the stitches in his arm. "It was all -- and then -- "

"Yep," Doctor Harper says, looking irritated. "Hold the fuck still."

"Here you are," Mr. Jones says, holding out a PDA for Nicholas to study. "Report on the Tragla. We've had two before. The last time they were less...bitey."

The dead Tragla (Tosh pummeled it to death with a piece of pipe, Nicholas likes Tosh a lot) is sitting on the floor, awaiting its xenopsy. Nicholas studies the Torchwood Official Report, written by S. Costello, and is happy to see there is no poison in its bite.

He looks up at Mr. Jones.

"Who is S. Costello?"

Both men go rigid with tension at the name.

"Old employee," Doctor Harper says.

***

_We do not steal artefacts. We do not abuse the power of stewardship with which we have been entrusted in order to get laid._

Sometimes Nicholas wonders about the staff. A lot of the time he thinks Doctor Harper and Gwen must be shagging, even if Gwen says she has a boyfriend. Other times he thinks it's a rank impossibility, because nobody in their right mind would shag Doctor Harper. 

Tosh, he thinks, might have the hots for Gwen, or they might just be good girlfriends. Tosh definitely likes Doctor Harper, and Nicholas is confused as to why. Surely anyone, given the choice between Doctor Harper and Mr. Jones, would choose Mr. Jones. 

But Mr. Jones doesn't appear to be shagging anyone. Doesn't even appear interested. Maybe Mr. Jones is one of those Asexuals that Nicholas has read about in trendy blogs. Or maybe S. Costello was his girlfriend. 

"How are you settling in?" Mr. Jones asks him, on the tenth day.

"All right. I miss Amy, though," Nicholas admits. "Be glad when the trial is over and I can tell her. She's dying to move to Cardiff, she hates Edinburgh." He pauses, but curiosity wins out. "Have you got a girlfriend then?"

"I had," Mr. Jones says. "She died."

Ah. So that's why Mr. Jones is sad.

***

_We do not touch the coffeemaker. If we want coffee we will ask Ianto._   
_We do not refer to Gwen as "Rookie", "Angel", or "Flatfoot"._   
_We do not throw tools._

Nicholas thinks he's getting the rhythm of this now. When a call comes in, if he's there, his job is to stay on comms, to do whatever Tosh tells him to do to the computer, and to make sure that everything's in order in the medical bay. Otherwise he is to perform his duties as usual. Mr. Jones will page him when they're getting ready to come back in, so that he may put the coffee and tea on in time, and sometimes he gets enough warning that he can run out for pastries or put in a food order. 

If he's not there, Mr. Jones will text his mobile, and Nicholas will get up and dress and hurry to the Hub. The team has filled his head with stories of twenty-six-hour shifts, of forty-five-hour shifts, but Mr. Jones says that's not all that common.

"Still," he says, "You should be prepared. Keep some things at the Hub."

Nicholas quickly packs an overnight bag and installs it in an unobtrusive corner. He is prepared! He is prepared for _anything._

***

_Only Jack is allowed to throttle members of the staff._  
 _We do not find rubber duckies floating in the Hub pool amusing._   
_Tosh's handwriting: We didn't know they would clog the filters. Sorry._

Nicholas catches Doctor Harper with Tosh's dinner, throwing chunks of food up for the pterodactyl to catch. This is bad for Myfanwy; it spoils her appetite and puts her off-schedule.

"You shouldn't do that," he says, and Doctor Harper ignores him. Nicholas glances at Mr. Jones, who is watching with faint amusement. No help there, then.

"Doctor Harper, stop that."

Doctor Harper gives him a scornful look and keeps throwing. Nicholas tries to block a throw, but only succeeds in getting shoved off the walkway. He lands, fortunately still on his feet, in the pool. 

"Doctor Harper, stop."

Doctor Harper doesn't stop. Nicholas climbs up out of the pool, approaches, and punches Doctor Harper gently in the stomach. It's nothing more than a tap; he's given worse to his kid brothers, but he doubles over with a whoofing noise, and Nicholas retrieves the food.

"And you are a very naughty dinosaur!" he calls over Doctor Harper's back, to Myfanwy.

Mr. Jones, when he looks again, is smiling. Even Doctor Harper looks cheerful as he pokes at his new bruise later that day. The next time Nicholas tells him to stop, he stops. 

And that is how Nicholas decides it's okay to call him Owen.

***

_We do not press buttons on artefacts simply to see what will happen when we do._   
_We do not under any circumstances take home any aliens no matter how attractive, fuzzy, harmless, or delicious they appear to be._

On the last day of his trial two weeks, Nicholas is certain he will be fired. 

It's not that he meant to switch the device on to cause mischief. It's just that the notes said it was a musicbox, and Nicholas wants to hear it. He'd ask Mr. Jones for a demonstration, but Mr. Jones is out with the team. 

When they return and find that he's been standing there for two hours, unresponsive, trapped in the music, he's positive he'll be sacked and the white pill will make sure he doesn't even remember this. He's close to tears. 

But instead Mr. Jones and Gwen take him to the conference room and fix him something warm to drink, and they telegraph looks back and forth across his head until Mr. Jones clears his throat.

"We aren't going to do that again, are we?" he asks.

"Nosir," Nicholas says hastily. Mr. Jones nods and leaves, and Nicholas is alone with Gwen.

"You all right then?" she asks.

"Am I sacked?"

Gwen smiles, and Nicholas's world is a little warmer.

"No, love," she says. "Not hardly. Ianto likes you too much. He was that worried when you didn't answer your page."

Nicholas nods miserably.

"So," she says brightly. "When's your girlfriend coming down? I'm dying to meet her. So's Tosh. We'd like to show her Cardiff."

***

_We do not drink anything, ever, around Tosh's station unless we are Tosh._   
_Owen's handwriting: Wasn't me._

"Why don't I get a coaster?" Owen asks. 

"Because you're an ass," Mr. Jones answers. 

"That's hardly a reason. If he's all that concerned with rings on the tables, he should give me a coaster because I'm more likely to make a mess, aren't I?"

Nicholas listens from across the Hub and smiles. Mr. Jones doesn't get a coaster either, but that's because Mr. Jones never stays still long enough. Tosh gets a special alien coaster that prevents spills, and Gwen gets one that says BOTTOMS UP WALES, but Owen doesn't get a coaster because he is an ass.

"I don't think rings on the tables are the reason he gives us coasters," Mr. Jones says, and Nicholas realises that while he's been watching everyone else, they've been watching him.

***

_We do not wear any articles of clothing, armor, or headgear that do not belong to us._

There are some things the team never mentions, but Nicholas is good with computers. He stumbles across it while he's studying the mysterious S. Costello whose notes are all over the database. 

A glove that can resurrect people, if only for two minutes. Perhaps so they can say their goodbyes. Destroyed in the Hub in connection to a string of murders this past year. 

Nicholas shudders and hopes that wherever S. Costello is -- there's no personnel file for the name -- S. Costello doesn't remember the glove.

***

_Owen's handwriting, scratched out with a heavy marker pen: ~~We do not store our girlfriends at the Hub.~~_   
_Jack's handwriting: We do not throw stones when we live in glass houses. Owen._   
_We do not refer to Rhys as The Civilian._

Three weeks in, his girlfriend Amy moves to Cardiff. She's found a job in a bookshop, and Nicholas visits her if he has time off during the day. He's introduced her to Gwen and Tosh, who he understands have given her tips on where to eat and where the best shoe shop is. Girls. Honestly.

She's met Mr. Jones too, though Mr. Jones doesn't know Nicholas knows that. Mr. Jones bought four books from the shop, chatted with her for a while, told her Cardiff welcomed her, and left. 

Nicholas isn't stupid. Mr. Jones is making sure she won't be a liability, same as Captain Jack Harkness must have done with Rhys, Gwen's lad. 

He loves Amy, and she never asks about his job, which is a relief. She probably doesn't even know he works for Mr. Jones. 

***

_We do not borrow Ianto's earpiece because we cannot find ours. We will ask Ianto first if he can find ours._

His first week at work, Nicholas wore a suit, because he'd worn a suit to the interview and because Mr. Jones wore a suit. Nobody else did, though; they wore t-shirts and jeans, clothing good for running and jumping and shooting in. Tosh wears nicer clothing than the other two, but it's still easy-to-clean, doesn't-show-wrinkles gear. Besides, the suit is sort of Mr. Jones's signature look, and Nicholas wouldn't want to be unoriginal. 

He stops wearing a tie. He switches over to jeans. Sure, he doesn't go out on missions, but he does clean the SUV and the Hub, and it'll be so much easier in comfortable clothing. On Fridays he even wears a t-shirt instead of his usual Oxfords. 

Sometimes, this helps him differentiate the days of the week, because once in a while he will otherwise forget what day it is and wonder why Cardiff is so crowded that evening. Then he remembers that normal people go out on Fridays, and don't work on weekends. 

Mr. Jones appears to observe casual Friday, in his own quiet way, by wearing brown instead of black. 

***

_We do not leave the keys in the SUV. Ever._   
_Owen's handwriting: We do not take Owen on camping trips._   
_We do not denigrate the fine men and women of the local police authority and if they write us parking tickets we do not expect Torchwood, Gwen, or Ianto to get us out of paying._

It is Owen, oddly, who takes Nicholas out for his first defensive driving training. They spend hours in empty parking lots and on backroads, and Nicholas has never had so much fun in his life. He loves speed, he loves dodging around traffic cones, and he loves, he _loves_ that the SUV has clearance to go anywhere at any speed. 

The next day, Mr. Jones sends him out with the team.

"You drive, and you do nothing else," he says. So Nicholas does. He drives. 

Gwen and Owen bicker about why Owen is letting the new boy drive; they are definitely shagging. 

***

_We do not play first-person shooters, MMORGs, or Tetris on Tosh's computers. We do not install The Sims on any Torchwood servers._

Or maybe not. Because Owen seems genuinely pleased and gives Gwen a very nice hug when she announces her engagement. Nicholas does too. 

He covertly looks up the file on Rhys that evening, and finds it is read-only -- already open on another screen. He glances across at Mr. Jones, at his own desk. Mr. Jones is looking at him.

"Only sensible," Nicholas says. "Keeping an eye on the team."

"Maybe you deserve a raise," Mr. Jones says thoughtfully. 

***

_We absolutely do not shag anything we cannot verify as human._   
_Jack's handwriting: Ianto, this seems very xenophobic to me. There are lots of perfectly charming shaggable species out there who aren't human._   
_Amendment: Unless we are Jack, who knows what he's doing ~~and it's not like you could stop him anyway~~._   
_Jack's handwriting: Don't make me discipline you._

In his fourth week, Nicholas realises that aliens are EVERYWHERE. Tosh takes him on a walk round Cardiff and points out four different shops owned by humanoid aliens, and three people who are aliens in disguise.

"But they're all vetted and harmless," she says. "They're basically immigrants."

"Are there ever...non-harmless ones?" he asks, and suddenly Tosh looks like Mr. Jones, on one of his bad days.

"Some," she says. "It doesn't do to get too close to them."

Nicholas wonders how you stop from getting close to aliens, when they are all around. 

***

_We do not trust the undead. We do not take the undead on field trips._

Nicholas worries, sometimes, that he's getting far too good at disposing of bodies. 

***

_We do not use Gwen's soymilk even if we are out of cream and not man enough to drink our coffee black._   
_We do not borrow Ianto's car without asking. We have our own cars._

His coffee is not perfect, but Mr. Jones is very tolerant. The others hardly notice; they just want the warmth and caffeine. 

"Where did you learn to make coffee?" Nicholas asks.

"Coffee bar. First job when I was sixteen. Brilliant place, closed down now," Mr. Jones says. "You?"

"You've read my CV."

Mr. Jones grins. "Your CV is the reason you were hired. An honours in library science, combined with training at one of the best service schools in Europe? If you'd said you used to be a police cadet I wouldn't even have bothered with the interview."

Nicholas is grateful for the opening, and wonders for the umpteenth time if Mr. Jones can read his mind.

"About that, sir," he says. "I don't suppose I might get some weapons training?"

Gwen giggles for some reason, and Mr. Jones shoots her a dirty look. 

"Next week," he replies. 

***

_WE DO NOT MESS WITH THE RIFT._   
_Jack's handwriting: We do not shoot our superiors OR colleagues._

But Nicholas doesn't yet get his weapons training because then the world almost ends. 

It's okay though, since they stop it from ending, and Mr. Jones wipes his forehead with his sleeve and Owen gives Gwen four stitches in her thigh and Tosh says the computers will be fine.

"Does this happen often?" Nicholas asks, pouring whiskey all round. Mr. Jones had warned him there would be times when coffee would be insufficient, and he feels this is one of those times. 

Tosh checks her PDA.

"We're right on schedule. About every four weeks," she says. "Who won the pool this time?"

"There's a pool on world near-endings?" Nicholas asks, fascinated. He realises he should probably be horrified. He can't be bothered. This job is _so cool._

"Owen," Ianto says, without looking. "He had all of today and most of tomorrow."

Nicholas is about to ask who the last winner was, but something makes him stop. 

Maybe the last end of the world was when Jack disappeared. 

***

_Gwen's handwriting: We will leave a note if we intend to be missing for more than two hours, days, weeks, months..._   
_Jack's handwriting: We're sorry._

Blowfish in sports cars. Seriously. He'd write a book if he thought that anyone would believe it and also that Mr. Jones would not personally assassinate him. 

Nicholas loses comm with the team briefly, but he's not worried; he's to check in every hour with Mr. Jones, and failing that Mr. Jones will page him when they're returning. So he goes about tidying, and keeps an eye on the SUV, which is parked outside a bar. Pulling up the police reports, he sees that there's a disturbance at the bar; below it is a code that he knows off by heart. It means "Torchwood is handling it". 

"Nicholas."

Nicholas touches the comm in his ear. "Yes, Mr. Jones."

"We're en route. About ten minutes. We have two guests who will be accompanying us."

Just before Ianto shuts his comm off, he hears a male voice, American, say "Who the hell is Nicholas?" in the background. 

Torchwood doesn't have _guests_. 

Mr. Jones sounded...strained.

Nicholas puts two and two together. He fetches, from behind the coffee machine, the mug that nobody drinks from, with the four blue stripes. 

When they arrive he is just putting out the tea and coffee, and there's only the four of them.

"I thought -- " he begins, but Tosh and Owen rush past him. Gwen stops, looks at him as if he's the cause of all her worries, and then hurries onwards. Mr. Jones looks agitated, but he still moves smoothly, taking Nicholas by the arm and guiding him aside.

"Captain Harkness is back," he says. "He'll be the man in the blue coat -- " he stops, seeing the striped mug on Nicholas's tray, and then grins bigger than Nicholas has ever seen. "Well done. The man in the red coat is Captain Hart. He's a guest. He is to be treated with courtesy and nothing even approaching trust."

"Where are -- " Nicholas begins, but then he hears the invisible lift, and doesn't bother finishing his sentence. "Shall I make myself scarce, sir?"

"Stay handy," Mr. Jones says, and lifts the mugs off Nicholas's tray and onto Gwen's desk, taking the tray itself. 

The others have formed up in a loose line, Mr. Jones a bit ahead of them with the tray; they look like they're awaiting inspection, and Nicholas wonders how military the title Captain is. He always assumed it meant Captain of Torchwood. 

The men on the lift look like they've wandered out of a costume ball, but they wear it well. Captain Harkness is much younger than Nicholas imagined, and looks like an action hero. Captain Hart looks like an oik. 

Nicholas watches from the shadows as Mr. Jones takes up a position to the right and just behind Captain Harkness when he steps off the lift. Captain Harkness disarms Captain Hart thoroughly, placing the weapons on Mr. Jones's tray.

He wonders if, now that their Captain is home, Mr. Jones will take up the position permanently -- the one Nicholas has been filling, to the right and just behind the leaders. 

He wonders if he'll be sacked, now that he's no longer necessary.


	2. Chapter 2

_Unauthorised Police Public Call Boxes are required to give advance notice before arrival._  
 _Jack's handwriting: WE SAID we're sorry._

Nicholas has to bring the drinks up to the conference room. Captain Harkness keeps giving him the once-over as if he's a stray cat who wandered in, and Captain Hart keeps giving him the once-over as if he's an attractive proposition. He isn't called to stay in the conference (that's fine; he rarely does, Gwen or Mr. Jones will tell him what he needs to know) but as he's leaving, Captain Hart wolf-whistles and he stops and stiffens, unable to help himself.

"So you _do_ have a blond," he says. "Who do you belong to, gorgeous?"

Nicholas turns, uncertain how to reply.

"Me," Mr. Jones says simply. Both Captains look at Mr. Jones, Hart in amusement, Harkness in amazement. "Paw the help and you'll be surprised how fast he bites, Captain Hart."

"I like biting," Captain Hart says. Nicholas feels himself blushing.

"You won't when he does it," Mr. Jones retorts. "That's all, Nicholas."

Nicholas keeps out from underfoot for the rest of the evening; the team leaves again and, while he hears back once from Tosh, Mr. Jones and Captain Harkness don't contact him at all. He worries, of course, but there is still cleaning to do and there are reports to collate.

He is unaware the comms have been jammed until he hears the rolldoor opening, and then -- expecting Mr. Jones -- he is not ready for Captain Hart. 

The real problem is that he never did get that firearms training, and Captain Hart shoots him in the shoulder.

Which sort of hurts, really. 

***

_We do not humour the whims of time-traveling ex-partners._  
 _[Evidence of Jack's handwriting has been erased.]_

Owen patches him up while the others confront the Captain (and he hears something, as if from far away, something about Captain Harkness being unable to die) and then there's a bomb and handcuffs and a ten-minute time limit and Nicholas feels as if this is all a bit much, suddenly, right before everyone is gone again.

He tries the comms, then their phones, but all he gets is static. Since Cardiff hasn't been blown up he feels that everything probably came out all right, but it's still an hour before he hears from any of the team.

"Is this Nicholas?" says that smooth American voice in his ear.

"Captain Harkness. Nice to hear you're still alive, sir," Nicholas says, flooding with relief. 

"I could say the same. How's your shoulder?"

"Flesh wound, sir." He hesitates. "Is Mr. Jones there?"

A chuckle. "Yeah. Come on up, we're on the Plass. I'm taking you two to breakfast. I've heard a lot about you from Ianto."

Nicholas wonders exactly what the hell is going on and when Mr. Jones had _time_ to talk to Captain Harkness about trivialities like Nicholas. Still, breakfast is breakfast. 

They're settled into a breakfast place that Captain Harkness swears serves the best fried eggs on the planet; Mr. Jones is sitting on one side, Nicholas on the other, with the Captain expansive and smiling in the middle. A smile that does not quite reach his eyes.

"Two beautiful men and a hot meal," he says, and Nicholas glances at Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones is serenely taking this remark in stride; apparently this is the Captain's way. "Life is good."

He leans forward and turns to Nicholas. "So. You're our new General Support. Ianto says you've been useful."

Nicholas smiles hesitantly. Captain Harkness is huge, somehow, taking up all the available charisma in the room. "Yes, Captain. I've tried to be of help."

"You like working for Torchwood?"

"Very much, sir."

"What is it with the sirs?" Captain Harkness asks, turning to Mr. Jones. "Did you teach him that?"

"He came that way," Mr. Jones answers. "Can't get him to stop calling me Mr. Jones. Good for the ego, though."

"What's your stance on sexual harassment?" Captain Harkness asks, turning back to Nicholas. His hand lands on Nicholas's knee, which from anyone else would be deeply uncomfortable, but from him somehow...isn't.

Later, Mr. Jones will say to him, "Jack's just like that," and Nicholas will agree. For now, he meets Captain Harkness's deep blue eyes and smiles.

"I'll let you know if I ever encounter any," he says, and Captain Harkness laughs.

"Let's keep him," he tells Mr. Jones. 

Nicholas sees a look on Mr. Jones's face that he can't describe. He doesn't have to, though, because he can feel it inside of him: Captain Harkness is big and loud and American, he talks with his mouth full, he is obviously chasing Mr. Jones shamelessly, he has no personal boundaries at all, and after half an hour in his presence Nicholas would gladly get mauled by a Weevil for the Captain's sake. 

***

_We do not sniff **any** of the resonators, **especially** the sub-etheric._

Captain Harkness lives at the Hub. This takes some getting used-to, because aside from Mr. Jones, Nicholas is there the most. But it's no bother really, because Mr. Jones looks after the Captain personally. And, with Mr. Jones as an infallible guide, Nicholas finds himself falling into a new rhythm, easy as that, working around and alongside the Captain. Captain Harkness says to call him Jack, but Nicholas finds himself stuttering every time he tries, so he gives up after a while. 

All of them adore the Captain, that much is obvious. They fight with him and shout at him and once in a while there are glares that would freeze you to your seat (the Captain is clearly a Captain, he _must_ be ex-military) but they love him. And, as Nicholas is just the tea boy, he feels pretty secure. Besides, Mr. Jones has all but put a collar on him; Mr. Jones would protect him if the Captain were angry.

Nicholas loves them, even Owen, but Mr. Jones most of all. He would love the Captain, but he's a little afraid to.

Amy sometimes complains now, about how much time he spends at work, but Nicholas knows she has friends and places to go and things to do, and she'll be fine. 

***

_When dying, we will make every effort not to bleed on the SUV's upholstery._

When they come back from chasing down the Sleepers, Nicholas is in the parking lot waiting for them, and he sees the Captain pale and bloody on the passenger's seat, his skin grey. He drops the coffee all over the cement. 

"Nicholas," Mr. Jones says. "Come here."

Nicholas helps to lift the Captain out, body already cooling, and there's so much blood. It's not fair; he only just met him, and Mr. Jones will go back to being sad and silent and Gwen will cry and Nicholas isn't sure he has enough tissues. 

When the Captain is laid out in the morgue, shirt stripped off (but trousers still on, though they're bloody too), Mr. Jones turns to him.

"There's something you should know about Jack," he says.

Then the Captain inhales.

Nicholas doesn't stop shaking for two hours. The Captain seems very amused.

***

_We do not use Ianto's screwdriver set to try and pry open locked boxes. They are obviously locked for a reason._  
 _Gwen's handwriting: Can't resist a puzzle. I'll buy you a new set._

Nicholas wonders sometimes, watching the Captain, if he's caught Mr. Jones yet. 

After all, Mr. Jones does not seem to be running very hard.

***

_We do not refer to Rhys as Tonto, Robin, or Arthur._

Nicholas thinks Rhys is a decent bloke. Pretty smart, too; he can't imagine showing Amy all this without Amy throwing an absolute fit. And it's quite nice that he took a bullet for Gwen, though everyone's agreed that Gwen should probably take her own bullets, this being the twenty-first century and all. 

After the excitement has died down (and Gwen's thrown another fit at the Captain, which is becoming an annoying routine), Nicholas sees that Mr. Jones is tired, and sends him home. Mr. Jones does _not_ want to go, but Nicholas insists, and says that he'll manage the Captain for one evening. 

"Manage me, huh?" the Captain asks, as soon as Mr. Jones is gone. _Damn._ "How are you going to manage me, Nicholas?"

Nicholas is prepared, however.

"I believe, sir, that I ought to have some firearms training," he says boldly. The Captain's grin tells him all he needs, in conjunction with Gwen's earlier giggles over the phrase. "I'm told you're quite the expert."

Down in the range, the Captain teaches him how to load; he's pleased to know Nicholas already knows how to clean a gun, which Mr. Jones taught him late one night when everyone else had gone home. The Captain's hands are huge and warm on Nicholas's as he shows him how to hold the weapon, then how to fire. Nicholas is off by a mile.

"Here, like this," the Captain says, and steadies his arm with one hand. The other, disconcertingly, goes around his waist, pulling them together. 

He's quite positive that the Captain didn't have a gun in his pocket. Which means that the Captain must be very happy to see him. 

Still, and rather oddly, there's absolutely no inappropriate behaviour. The Captain touches his arms and shoulders constantly, but he never gropes him, it's never even a caress. His breath is warm in Nicholas's ear, but he never bites or licks or kisses. Yes, there's another man's erection pressed against his arse, but there's no thrusting or anything. Perhaps it _is_ a gun.

At the end of the session, Captain Harkness looks more cheerful than he did. Nicholas thanks him, cleans the guns, locks up, goes home, and -- still smelling of gunpowder -- grabs Amy, pulling her into the bedroom. 

The sex is astounding, world-shaking even. It's one of the best shags of his life. 

The next morning, he realises Amy had planned an evening. And that evening was going to be spent dumping him. He realises this when she dumps him over breakfast and says she's moving back to Edinburgh.

At least he gets to keep the flat. 

***

_We will respect Owen's desire to become a vegetarian and we will not slip beef into his chili when he is not looking._

He's not certain if he can really talk to anyone about Amy dumping him. 

Owen's right out, though he does think Owen would take him out drinking and help him drown his sorrows. After hours of mocking, on the other hand, and Nicholas isn't sure he can deal with that. He'd _like_ to tell Owen, and that surprises him, because in the general way of things Owen is not his favourite person on Earth.

Tosh is best with computers, better than she is with people; she wouldn't know what to say to him, and he'd rather not inflict the awkwardness on her. 

Gwen would pet him and coddle him, and he doesn't want coddling. He's hardly seen Amy, the last few weeks, and finds that while he feels bad about the loss, he doesn't care overmuch. Amy seems so...banal, after all he's been through with Torchwood.

Mr. Jones...no. Ditto the Captain.

So he goes quietly about his day and doesn't talk about it much, hoping nobody will notice.

The Captain stops him, around dinner time, a hand on his arm.

"Dumped you, huh?" he asks, without particular sympathy. Nicholas gapes at him. "I've been around. I know what it looks like. OWEN!"

Nicholas closes his eyes.

"YEAH?" Owen calls.

"NICHOLAS WAS DUMPED. TAKE HIM OUT."

Everyone is staring. Nicholas could melt into the floor. Owen comes up out of the medical bay.

"Fine, but you're paying," he says to Nicholas. And just like that, the Captain has solved his problem. 

"Okay," Nicholas agrees weakly.

Owen grins at him. "Now, the big question. Are you now, Nicholas, or have you ever been, a heterosexual?"

"You people and your labels!"

"Come on Jeeves," Owen says, over the Captain's diatribe. It's one Nicholas has heard before, by now. "Girls exclusively? Interested in boys? Both?"

Nicholas casts a sidelong look at the others.

"Both?" he ventures. The Captain blinks at him.

"GAY BAR," Tosh and Gwen say, and each of them takes him by the arm enthusiastically.

As they march him out, Nicholas looks over his shoulder and mouths _Help me_ at Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones, however, just grins and waves. 

Bastard.

***

_Gwen's handwriting: We do not stun-gun people in the head if it is avoidable._  
 _We do not know what Gwen is talking about._

The bar ends up being kind of fun. Tosh makes eyes at Owen all night, while Owen grumbles about being secure in his sexuality and fends off a remarkable number of suitors. Gwen drinks things with lots of fruit in them, and Nicholas feels very, very attractive after the fourth or fifth phone number he collects. He'd never call them; he's not that kind of boy. But the attention is awfully nice. 

He'd try to pull Tosh if she weren't so obviously into Owen. 

At the end of the night he pours all three of them into cabs, sends them on their way, and walks home in the cool night air, alone.

It's been a very good night. 

He's up early the next morning, and greets the three of them with hangover remedies as they come in. 

***

_We do not read other peoples' reports, computer screens, or diaries without permission._

Nicholas knows that Retcon has one failing: you can be triggered to remember, and if you work at it you can even install a trigger. Once they've all forgotten, Adam should die, so he feels no guilt over focusing on the Captain's coat and running the whole weekend over and over again in his head, so that when he sees the Captain the following day he'll remember.

The Captain calls him in on Monday afternoon.

"Do you remember where our two days went?" he asks.

"Yes," Nicholas admits, though he doesn't know how the Captain knows that. The memory unfurls before him, like a TV drama he saw but had no part in. He can see Owen in his silly cardigan, trailing after Tosh like a puppy; he can see some kind of darkness in Mr. Jones's eyes that he can't explain. He can see Tosh kissing Adam passionately, and even now he wants to punch Adam across the face for what he did to Tosh, to all of them. He can see Gwen, lost and confused with an engagement ring from a man she's never met. He can see what Adam thought would be best for all of them (except maybe Mr. Jones). 

He can see Gwen propositioning him, saying that she's loved him forever, which he supposes was Adam's attempt to make Gwen happy. 

He can see himself, almost unchanged, but kicked up to field agent while Mr. Jones drops back to play butler. Adam didn't know him. Adam had no clue. 

He hates Adam passionately.

"Can you tell us what happened?" the Captain asks. "Can you tell us why you remember?"

"I think it's best left alone," Nicholas says quietly. He knows this is likely to cause a firestorm of anger from the Captain, but instead the Captain just smiles a little. In that moment, Nicholas knows, he could call him Jack without stuttering. 

In the darkened room -- Gwen loving Rhys and Jack in different ways, Owen suffering his mother's cruelty, Tosh and her love of mathematics, Mr. Jones and his need for purpose, his need for Jack. Nicholas, and his first day at Torchwood, falling in love with everything about it. 

"I'm old enough to know when not to ask," Jack says. "You okay keeping this secret?"

Yes. Nicholas is okay. 

***

_WE DO NOT FIRE THE SINGULARITY SCALPEL AT IANTO._

Nicholas falls hard for Martha Jones from the moment he sees her. She's gorgeous and talented and witty and hardcore. She's _stupendous._ He just wants to grab her and kiss her. He divines from Jack that this is perhaps not uncommon. Jack looks like he wants to grab her and kiss her too. 

It's wonderful really, because Nicholas knows Martha is so far out of his league it would never in a million years happen, so it's like looking at this amazing work of art. It's just beautiful. 

Tosh teases him about it. Nicholas doesn't care. He is beginning to discover a capacity that he thinks is not unlike Jack's: falling in and out of love with practiced ease. 

He wonders eagerly who he'll fall in love with next. 

***

_Owen's handwriting: We do not take accidental near-dismemberment personally._

Nobody cries when Owen is brought back to the Hub. It's like they can't believe it's happened. They're pale and drawn and silent, and nobody cries.

Nicholas pushes Mr. Jones away gently and puts himself in his place, helping Martha get the gurney out and wheel Owen to the medical bay. He hasn't known Owen as long as the others, this should be his job.

They undress him carefully in silence, while the others gather somewhere and talk in low tones. Jack didn't come back with them. He doesn't know where Jack went. 

He washes Owen himself, telling Martha she doesn't have to be there. As he washes him, he cries just a little. 

***

_Martha has a boyfriend. Yes, still. Yes._ **Still**.  
Martha's handwriting: And if I didn't I'd shag Ianto first.  
Thank you, Martha. 

Nicholas is afraid of death, but it's inevitable, so he doesn't spend much energy on it. He's more afraid of old age, of losing the power in his muscles, the flexibility in his joints. 

Still, he stays in the hospital room with Martha and her frightening wrinkles, sends Mr. Jones off to help Tosh, and works like hell to try and find some answers, all the while with Jack demanding them in his ear. There is chaos of all kinds and screaming and Tosh cursing and Jack cursing and then sudden silence.

"Jack?" he asks. "Tosh? Owen? Mr. Jones?"

Silence.

"Anyone?"

Then a hand grabs him and he shrieks and turns and Martha's there and she's okay and he's laughing and he kisses her, and she kisses back, and then she looks so totally embarrassed. 

By god, she's a beautiful woman. And it's lovely that he got to kiss her. 

And now they have work to do.

***

_To reiterate: We do not trust the undead nor take them on field trips. A significant goal of Torchwood Three is a decrease in the number of undead per fiscal year._  
 _Owen's handwriting: Get stuffed, Jones._

"How long's he been under for?" Nicholas asks. Jack is standing on the decks, holding a stopwatch; Owen is out there in the bay somewhere, being not-dead.

"About ten minutes," Jack says. 

"Shall I get some towels?"

"Yeah. And probably a bucket for the sea water."

"Charming."

"Take your time with those towels," Jack adds, as Nicholas walks across the Plass. "Owen looks hot in wet trousers."

Nicholas snickers. It's hard to take death seriously when one of your colleagues is dead but has yet to stop being a pain in the arse. 

***

_When Ianto calls us on our headsets we answer promptly._  
 _We do not make inappropriate remarks about childrens' books._

This is how Nicholas stops calling him Mr. Jones. 

Owen has dumped a lot on Mr. Jones, and on Nicholas, because he's been relegated to second-class citizenship over the whole "being dead" thing. For whatever reason (Gwen says it has to do with Mr. Jones shooting Owen, which Nicholas thinks is her having him on) Owen and Mr. Jones have this deep-seated animosity going on that is fun to watch if you're not in the crossfire. So Owen mostly uses Mr. Jones as a punching bag, and Mr. Jones takes it, and Owen only works out his frustration on Nicholas when he manages to notice he's there. 

"Do you fancy a drink?" Mr. Jones asks him, after Owen storms off, shouting about stupid people with stupid pulses. Nicholas, feeling a little shaky about Owen's sudden descent from arsehole to raving lunatic arsehole, absolutely does fancy a drink. "There's a pub I know. Jack's buried in research, there's no shifting him. He'll keep an eye on the Rift."

"Does it scare you, death?" Nicholas asks, as the barman brings their drinks -- a pint for Nicholas, scotch for Mr. Jones. 

"It's not death so much," Mr. Jones says contemplatively. "Not mine, I mean."

"Other peoples' deaths scare you?" 

"It's just..." Mr. Jones draws invisible circles on the bar with his fingertips. "The problem is, in our line of work, nobody ever dies properly. Jack's old second -- before Gwen -- she died three or four times before she'd stay down, and even so I offered to put a lock on her drawer."

"This is S. Costello, isn't it?" Nicholas asks.

"Yes. Suzie. She went daft at the end."

"After or before all the death?"

Mr. Jones sighs. "Before. And there's Jack, of course. I haven't even bothered to keep count, with him. And now Owen. And -- " he stops abruptly. Looks at Nicholas. Looks down at his drink. Drains it. Nicholas waits patiently; he's good at that.

"My girlfriend, the one I said died. She was Torchwood. She was killed at Canary Wharf. Except she wasn't...and then -- " he stops again. "She really was killed then, her mind, who she was. But her body was still intact, and it was hard to see that she was gone. Jack killed that. Killed the body. Twice. Set me free."

He rubs his forehead. "Took me months to work it all out, to figure out how to grieve. But she was already dead. And I can't -- blame Jack. Or the others. I have to believe she was dead. Otherwise I'm shagging the man who murdered her."

Ah. So Jack finally did catch Mr. Jones. Or maybe he'd been caught all along. Nicholas remembers how unhappy he could be, before Jack came back.

"So you can see why death is a bit of a puzzle for us," he says, his voice bright and brittle.

"Ianto," Nicholas says. He has to be Ianto now. He just does. "Listen, mate, I'm really sorry."

Ianto shakes his head. "No, I am. No reason to bring it up. Lisa and Jack and the whole -- " 

"Clusterfuck of Torchwood?" Nicholas says lightly. Another scotch is placed in front of Ianto's hands.

"To the clusterfuck of Torchwood," Ianto says solemnly, toasting him. 

***

_It is not funny to leave the Zombie War Survival Guide on Owen's desk ~~, Gwen~~._

Nicholas realises one night, in his flat, that really it isn't that you don't leave Torchwood. It's that Torchwood never leaves you. His bookshelves have all kinds of history books and weapons manuals and science texts on them now, as well as a few books that Jack recommended on extraterrestrial life and temporal physics. His fridge is stocked with easy-to-cook food, because you never know when the Hub will call. He doesn't watch scifi television anymore, mostly he watches the news. He hardly ever brings anyone home, though he could, simply because it's hard to make ordinary conversation these days.

Tosh says it's worth it to protect people. Gwen says it's worth it because someone has to. Owen says it isn't worth it but you've got to earn a paycheck (this is a lie, but the truth cuts Owen too deep, he suspects). Jack looks at him funny when the subject comes up. Ianto says he's still working on it.

Nicholas thinks that Torchwood is the thinking man's drug. Because what other job could possibly compare?

***

_Jack's handwriting: Maternity leave is now mandatory beginning at first sign of alien impregnation. Maternity leave will be taken in the medical bay or the cells._  
 _Owen's handwriting: Especially for the men._

Nicholas expected to be the one picked to go get Gwen a new dress, but instead Ianto insists. He says his father was a tailor. Nicholas certainly won't argue. 

He stays at the Hub, monitoring things even after Jack and Ianto and Owen run off to stop the wedding and kill some aliens. Jack pages him, that evening, and says he can leave; he sounds cheerful, but there's a maudlin undertone that makes Nicholas wonder if Jack was drinking at the reception. 

The next morning, there's confetti on the Hub floor. Nicholas sweeps it up without comment.

Gwen sends him a very nice postcard from the honeymoon.

***

 _We do not hurl unnecessary insults at aliens or innocent ~~parents~~ bystanders whom we believe to be aliens._

He tells his partners, "This is my mobile. If it rings, it doesn't matter what we're doing or where we are. I go running."

Some of them get it. Some of them say they do, but get mad when he stops in the middle of kissing them and answers his mobile. Some of them think he's a loser and ditch him. 

Maybe they're right. 

Still, when the mobile rings, he goes running. 

***

_We do not ask Ianto for mix CDs. He does not "spin like a mofo" and we accept that he does not find this amusing._  
 _We do not think it is funny to install Matrix screensavers on Tosh's computer when she's not looking._

Nicholas knows in theory that Ianto and Jack go out and...do things together, like a couple, _as_ a couple actually, and it's weird on any number of levels. Foremost is that Jack is like a zillion years old and Ianto is only a year older than Nicholas. Second, the fact that Ianto's last girlfriend died horribly and Jack can't die at all is a psychologist's wet dream. Third, Jack's his boss. Fourth, some of their dates apparently involve Weevil hunting. 

But it's weirder, he thinks, to be having a drink at the bar and turn around and randomly see your boss and _his_ boss dancing together, in amidst the other couples on the floor. Somewhat crazily, his first thought is that Jack's probably leading, and it was definitely Jack's idea to dance. 

Jack's coat and overshirt are both gone, his braces hanging off his trousers, and he's grinning. Ianto's lost the suit jacket and rolled his sleeves but kept the waistcoat. His hair is mussed. 

Nicholas sometimes wonders what the others think, but either out of respect for Ianto or love of Jack they don't discuss it. Long ago he learned to keep no secrets in the Hub, but this, they don't touch on.

It's a shame, because it makes Ianto happy and puts the light back in Jack's eyes, and he wishes the others were here to see.


	3. Chapter 3

_At the first sign of disembodied music of any kind (especially Pipe Organ) we will alert Jack immediately. If we are Jack, we will alert everyone else._  
 _None of us speak Polari, Jack, and none of us want to learn._

After the Night Travelers are vanquished, Jack is ebullient over saving one boy. This, by Nicholas's standards, is not that awesome. "Hey kid! You're alive! And your whole family is dead!" 

Still, he guesses Jack grabs joy where he can.

Ianto is subdued, and actually maybe that's why Jack's so noisy. He's kept out the reel-to-reel and put on an old film, a different film -- the Marx Brothers. Owen goes off to wherever he goes at night, and Gwen goes home to Rhys, but they and Tosh stay on and watch, sipping cocoa and laughing at the film. 

"There was a whole different language," Jack says, when the inevitable discussion of the work they've done comes up. "When I traveled with the show, there was a carnie language -- full of French and Italian."

"Polari," Tosh mumbles. 

"O vada mi bona omi, the feely omi, the bona riah, the fantabulosa paliasse and leucoddy," Jack says, one hand on Ianto's shoulder. Ianto is asleep next to him, nose resting on Tosh's shoulder. Tosh's face is squashed up against Ianto's hair, and she's all but unconscious. "Vada the dolly dona, tosheroon worth of savvy to spare."

Nicholas raises an eyebrow. Jack looks at him.

"And the bona eek of the new omiette. Charper his eek; charper his dolly drag, his lallies in those bethnals. A feele in the lattie of the butch omis, but savvy as the soleil." Jack tilts his head back again. "Dove all my bona palones and omis, nish a naph barnet or dull ogle in the lattie."

"You're very good at it -- Polari?" Nicholas asks. Jack nods without lifting his head much. "It's pretty. I've never heard of it before."

"So many languages," Jack says, more consideringly. "They come and go, live and die..." 

"We keep what we can," Nicholas says, only meaning Tosh's linguistics programs. 

Jack closes his eyes.

***

_We do not eat Tosh's lunch. It is Tosh's lunch and, no matter how hungry we are, we do not eat it. Unless, obviously, we are Tosh._

Nicholas can't count how many lunches and dinners he's ordered for the team, but he's sure they're keeping Jubilee Pizza in business. He doesn't even _like_ their pizza, but he likes their delivery girl. 

With him along, occasionally Ianto and Tosh can out-vote the Owen-Gwen-Jack trifecta and convince the others to order kebabs or curry, but not always. Nicholas supposes the mighty power of Being The One Who Has To Order The Food confers on him the ability to simply decide what they will eat, but it is one he knows he must never abuse. 

He passes out the plates and sets out drinks, handing the pizza boxes around. There's no rank at table; everyone takes the first seat they come to, and the only rule is that Jack is always at the head. This time, the empty seat is next to Owen, between him and Jack. Owen has a piece of pizza on his plate, for appearance's sake.

Jack's already talking, around his mouthful of pepperoni, because apparently table manners cease to matter after one's fourteenth decade. Nicholas sits next to him and takes a large chunk of garlic bread and a small piece of pizza. 

"Look at this, I found a new party trick Tosh can do," Jack says, pointing at her. "Thirty-seventh decimal point of pi."

"One," Tosh says, looking pleased.

"Fiftieth?"

"Six."

"Six multiplied by eight place."

"Seven."

"How do we know she's right?" Nicholas asks Owen.

"Buggered if I know," Owen replies. 

"Which is sorta the point, in some cases," Jack says. 

Nicholas looks at him, confused.

"As long as you say it with speed and confidence, nobody wonders if it's true," Jack says, his eyes somewhere distant. After a second he snaps back. "Tosh knows Pi to the thousandth place."

"It's a quirk," Tosh murmurs. 

Nicholas watches Jack watch the team. It must be so lonely, not having anyone to be responsible to. 

"Sixty-ninth," Nicholas says impulsively. Gwen chokes on her cola, Tosh flushes, and Owen cracks up laughing. Ianto is staring at him, and Jack is staring at Tosh. 

"I don't -- "

"Ha!" Jack points.

"Seven!"

***

_Gwen's handwriting: No sex in the greenhouse._  
 _That's not going to help much, Gwen._

Nicholas is quite capable of going out all night and being in on time for work, but some nights everyone yearns for Torchwood. The quiet light of the medical bay or the darkness around the computers or the sofa in the shadows or the greenhouse or the archives. Nicholas is quite capable of staying in all night and working, as well.

Still, one needs must have tea breaks, and one might as well check in on Jack to see if he wants any. 

He sees a shadow in the greenhouse and passes along the walkway without a thought in his mind except whether Jack wants tea; he pushes open the door without knocking, because it is the _greenhouse_ after all.

"Jack, I was wondering if you'd..." he trails off. 

Jack has nice hips. Ianto is less bony than he would have thought. 

Oh. That would be Ianto's hand down Jack's trousers. And that would be Jack's face pressed against Ianto's neck, and that would be Ianto's eyes huge and dark as he stares at Nicholas and Jack lifts his head. 

Nicholas can't think what to do. It's hilarious and beautiful. Jack isn't even embarrassed and, as if to prove it, his hips twitch lightly. Ianto looks like he might not quite be all there.

"There'll be tea in the kitchen in five minutes," Nicholas hears himself say. Jack laughs, but it's missing the edge anyone else's would have. Like he's just been caught playing a video game or something. 

Five minutes later there is tea. There is also Ianto, his shirt back on, and Jack, his shirt hanging off his shoulders, trousers low on his hips. 

"You should have told us you were in the archives," Jack says, accepting a cup of tea. "We'd have made you referee naked hide-and-seek."

"Cheats, he _always_ cheats," Ianto says ruefully.

"There's room for one more," Jack murmurs. It should be a joke. It sounds like a filthy proposition. Well, it's Jack. He can make reading a budget report sound like a filthy proposition.

Nicholas looks at Ianto, who doesn't seem at all perturbed. Then again, Jack's kissed a lot of people since his return, and Ianto's seen a lot of those kisses. He wonders if Ianto's desperate, or has just learned not to care. 

Or if he gets off on it. Knowing he has the Captain, and everyone else only gets a taste. Can people actually _be_ that secure?

Jack eyes Nicholas over the rim of his mug. 

"Coming back up?" he asks Ianto. "Work to do."

"Yep," Ianto replies. He smiles at Nicholas as he passes.

When Gwen comes in a few minutes later, Nicholas catches her arm before she can climb the stairs.

"I wouldn't," he murmurs.

"I need to talk to -- "

"He's not alone."

Gwen looks down, backs down.

"There's a package on your desk," Nicholas offers. "Saw it there earlier."

Gwen takes the package and leaves; Nicholas stays near the stairs, contemplatively sipping his tea. Well, if they don't care, why should he?

(Upstairs, though Nicholas doesn't hear it, Jack laughs into Ianto's mouth. 

"No really, can we keep him?")

***

_Doors exist to be knocked upon. Knock thou, and nip trouble in the bud._

Jack is always having to slap some member of the team down a notch. He's the Captain, and sometimes the team gets uppity, and they need to be gently pushed back into place. That makes sense. 

Nicholas has just never seen Jack try it on Ianto before.

He's caught, because he was bringing up a file to ask Jack about and heard them and ducked back into a niche behind Jack's door on the hallway side, and now he can hear everything going on in the office and if he tries to move he'll be seen. 

"I trusted you," Jack is shouting. "Ianto, I trust you, and every time -- "

"Don't you dare," Ianto is _snarling_ , which is even more scary than Jack shouting. "Don't you dare fling Lisa in my face. Not after what you did to us. And don't compare that betrayal to this. This is minor, this is _nothing!_ "

"Tell me how this is different! You knew, and you told her, and the whole thing went to hell. You didn't even -- how could you think you wouldn't get caught?"

"I didn't! I knew I would, and I knew you'd shout, and maybe you'll finally fucking _listen to me!_ "

Nicholas can hear Jack's harsh breathing. He has no idea what they're on about. 

"You wanted me to listen? I'm listening," Jack says. More silence. "Come on, Ianto, let's have it with both barrels."

"You think that nothing changes because you're living through it, you've been living through it for decades," Ianto says, his voice low and intense. "You think that we're still the same. Our tiny little early-history brains haven't changed since the thirties. Keep mum -- they're not so dumb."

Nicholas grins a little. Jack has an extensive collection of old propaganda posters, and that one's hanging on his wall. He can picture Ianto pointing at it. 

"But we aren't them, Jack! You can't lead us the same way you led them. You pick us up out of our quiet lives where we've been trained to question and think for ourselves, and then you expect us to soldier on and bite our lips when you say no. But that's not who we are."

More stony silence from Jack. 

"It doesn't work that way. Not anymore. If you even _pretended_ to care about her research, if you pretended to tell her some kind of half truth she'd have been satisfied! Why couldn't you let her have her project? What would she have found, Jack? She'd have burnt herself out and found nothing and it would have gone away. Or you could have told her everything and maybe if she weren't hysterical from fear she'd have understood."

"It's not your place to make my decisions for me."

"No. It's my place to tell you when you're making _stupid_ ones. It's your place to consider the fact that once in a while I might be _right!_ "

There's a scuffle and a thud next to the door, and Nicholas thinks Jack's finally lost it and gone after Ianto, but the next person who speaks is Ianto.

"You want it with both barrels, Jack?" he rasps. "Then take it point-blank. Act like you have something to hide, and we'll always, always find out what it is. Because you picked the smart ones. So this is your fucking fault, Jack. Not mine."

Jack huffs out a breath of air, then another. Nicholas desperately hopes he can escape soon.

Then there's a chuckle from Jack.

"So are we gonna make use of this wall, or what?"

Which everyone in Torchwood knows means Jack's lost this fight, because that's what Jack does when he loses. He changes the subject. To sex.

Nicholas risks a bolt when he thinks they're probably kissing, and apparently gets away with it. 

For the next few days, Jack is more talkative than usual, tells stories, smiles at people, even pins down Nicholas to ask how he's doing. 

Gwen is quiet, and strangely obedient. 

***

_Jack's handwriting: Consider the idea that when Jack says no, perhaps there is a reason._  
 _Consider the idea that some reasons are less valid than others._  
 _Jack's handwriting: Consider the idea of being unemployed._  
 _Consider my ~~arse~~ coffee._

Weeks after he hears the fight, Nicholas wakes up on Gwen's sofa one morning. Which is weird, because he's sure last night he brought someone home with him to his very own flat. 

And he's _quite_ sure it wasn't Jack, who is sitting on the sofa, Nicholas's head in his lap.

When he tries to move, his body complains stridently and his head aches. 

"Stay down," Jack says, pressing a hand to his head. "You're safe."

Nicholas stays. They are there in that moment, Nicholas still fuzzed from sleep, Jack resting his hand lightly on Nicholas's head, his leg warm against Nicholas's cheek. It goes on for a while. 

When Jack shifts slightly, Nicholas finally speaks. 

"What is..." he stutters. "What day is it?"

"Monday the twenty-fourth," Jack says. Which is stupid, last night was Friday the twenty-first...

"What happened?" he repeats. Jack is silent, fingers stroking his hair lightly. Nicholas waits, feeling each muscle in his body slowly; legs are okay, but his stomach and chest are sore, and it hurts to breathe. He looks at his hand, lying on Jack's leg in front of his face. There are red marks around his wrist, and what looks like a burn on the inside of his forearm. 

"I don't want you to ask me that again," Jack says. "Because if you ask I'll tell you, and it's better this way."

Nicholas eases up slowly, Jack's hand now under his shoulder, helping him. 

"Did I do something?" he asks hesitantly. "Did I -- "

"No," Jack replies. Jack is watching him with cold, birdlike blue eyes -- revealing nothing, hard as steel -- but his voice is reassuring, even affectionate. "You did nothing wrong, Nicholas."

"But it's Monday -- "

"You were retconned." Jack says, then corrects himself. "We retconned you."

Nicholas doesn't ever know what happened to him. He believes that by Sunday night he must have been in such a state that he _couldn't_ give or revoke permission to be retconned, and that Jack really did think it best and the others must have agreed. He believes that someone thought he would be their doorway into Torchwood, maybe tortured him, obviously beat him with something thick and heavy, definitely put those electrode burns in his scalp. He believes that this someone is the new body in the vaults, the one Ianto catalogued when really that's Nicholas's job. 

He believes that this might be the final snap of Torchwood's collar-buckle around his neck. 

In the nights following he will sleep untroubled by trauma. In the daytime he will go about his work with healing physical wounds and no mental ones. Jack or Ianto would tell him if he asks, but he never does. He's learned from Gwen's mistakes. 

Still, in that moment, he looks sideways at Jack.

"Don't ever fucking retcon me again."

Jack's eyes are still hard and full and cold. But he nods and before the tension can rise any higher Rhys appears, glorious in a pink dressing-gown, hair still damp from the shower. 

"Hi-ya. Gwen's just getting up. Want some toast?" Rhys asks, as if it's the most natural thing in the world. 

***

_If it's on Tosh's desk, don't press its buttons. No. Really._

Above and beyond death, which everyone's afraid of, and old age, which is inevitable (barring death, naturally), Nicholas is only really afraid of two things. Losing his team, and the little white pill.

He doesn't administer retcon. Back before Jack returned, Ianto made him do it once, but he telegraphed his anxiety so badly he nearly fucked it up, scared the poor guy out of drinking the water he brought him. Owen made him do it again, on the principle that you have to get back on the horse, and that time eventually Gwen had to take it from his hand and do it herself.

Once, knowing no better, Jack offhandedly told Nicholas he was on retcon duty. The entire team shook their heads a little, and Ianto stepped up and did it instead. 

Only the team understands. Only the team knows what is in each others' minds. Owen's desperate posturing, Tosh's anxiety when she's in the Hub alone, Gwen's pathological need to understand things nobody can understand, Ianto's hatred of live flame. Jack's constant missing part, his quest for the promise of an end. Nicholas's terror of the retcon. Only the team knows this about each other and none of them will use these things as ammunition in the fights they have, because then their own fears might be thrown at them in return. It is a strange kind of love, but it is love. 

There are machines in the archives that can kill painlessly, and ones that can kill for hours and hours on end with the most decided torment. Nicholas knows where each of them is. If his team is hurt, he knows how to use one or two of the nastier ones on Torchwood's would-be enemies. If he is ever told he can't come back, and the white pill appears in the fold of Jack's palm, Nicholas knows which one is closest, easiest to reach, so that he will stay in Torchwood forever, in the morgue. 

He is collared to them now, well and truly, collared and tagged too. But like Jack he feels immortal; he feels that he will always belong to Torchwood, and will serve her to his furthest reach and final breath. 

***

_We do not refer to Rhys as SuperRhys, however much he may deserve the title. It'll only go to his head._  
 _Gwen's handwriting: He will always be Super Rhys to me._  
 _I may gag._

Semi-anonymous sex loses its glitter after a while, as do the crowds at the bars and in the clubs. Nicholas finds that he likes his life; work every day (some nights), coming home to his flat, his books, his kitchen, his bed. 

He learned in service school that the gratitude or notice of his employer is not something to strive for, but for some reason these people are different, they see and thank him, they talk to him. Tosh has told him once, in a quiet moment while he helped her install some new equipment, that he has Ianto to thank for that. Ianto went without notice, and it ended badly, and now it doesn't matter because Ianto is one of the field team and Ianto has Jack. But back then it did matter, and everyone paid a price. 

This is perhaps why Gwen comes to him one afternoon when he's doing the washing-up, brings him some mugs and hitches her hip against the counter.

"Where do you go, when you leave the Hub?" she asks. 

"Home, mainly," he replies, wiping off a plate with sudsy water. "Out to a nice dinner, if there's time."

"You haven't really dated anyone since Amy. It's been a while." She smiles at him. "Can't find the right person?"

"More or less stopped looking," he answers.

"Why?"

He shrugs. "It's not as high on my priority list as it used to be."

Gwen nods. "And you don't worry about that?"

Does he? No, not really. It strikes him that Gwen is worried about him. He's the closest any of them come to normal; no deep traumas, no personal problems because of the job, no moral dilemmas, no fighting with Jack. He gives her a reassuring smile.

"We're told we're supposed to do things in our lives, in certain ways and at certain times," he says, setting a warm, damp mug on the towel next to the sink. He slides the mugs she's brought into the water. "Marry, have a steady job, have children, live our lives. We're told work is what we're supposed to do in order to enjoy the two-weeks-paid-holiday and the weekends. That's good, it must work for the majority, otherwise it wouldn't be what we're told to do."

Gwen is watching him now, eyes slightly narrowed.

"But I don't work to pay the bills. The bills exist so that I can come to work. This place mirror-flipped my life. Without it, I would be...incomplete."

"What do you want from life?" she asks, and he honestly doesn't have an answer for her, so he turns back to washing the mugs and thinks about it.

"I want to -- learn, I suppose. I want to touch on the infinite, however small and briefly. One of those tiny humans on that tiny planet, reaching towards the stars. That's better than two-weeks-paid in Majorca, don't you think?"

"Who do you talk to?" she asks. He raises his eyebrows. "Your problems, your fears. Who do you talk to?"

"You lot," he says, baffled. "Do you think I'm lonely, Gwen?"

"I don't know. Are you?"

"With Torchwood to look after and all the universe in front of me? No." He dries one hand and touches her wrist, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. "If you think I'm a mystery, I give you leave to try and solve me, though that seems fairly boring. But for god's sake, don't _worry_ about me."

She nods and leaves, and Nicholas goes back to washing. 

He sees Jack's shadow, leaning in the doorway; Jack was watching, Jack was listening. He doesn't credit Jack with putting Gwen up to it, but Gwen's inquiries so often yield Jack results. 

"One can try to balance this life and the outside world," Nicholas says carefully, and Jack doesn't twitch or move. "As Gwen does. One can look for solace inside Torchwood, like you and Ianto do."

"Or?" Jack says. He still hasn't moved.

"Or, if of the proper temperament, one can decide that Torchwood _is_ solace. Torchwood is the stars," Nicholas sets another mug on the dishtowel. "Why would I need anything more?"

"If you were offered the chance to see the stars -- the chance to go out there, instead of taking what comes here to us, would you take it?"

Nicholas considers.

"That would depend on what sort of person did the asking," he says, and Jack looks deeply unsettled. "And whether Torchwood would take me again when I came back."

"You'd come back?"

"Of course. This is where I belong."

***

 _Were we unclear about the part where we don't like the time-traveling ex-partners?_  
 _John Hart's Handwriting: That's hardly nice, Eyecandy._

When he can't raise anyone on the comms, Nicholas carefully does not panic. It's happened before, after all. He starts methodically trying their mobiles, but their mobiles all go straight to voicemail. He leaves an identical message on each. 

"This is Nicholas. I can't reach the team on comms or mobiles. I will be checking in half-hourly. When you receive this message please notify the team and contact me. If I do not make contact with any Torchwood staff within two hours I will initiate protocol twelve."

Protocol twelve, everyone but Owen will probably recall, involves Nicholas locking down the Hub securely, notifying UNIT that Torchwood is potentially compromised, and proceeding to the last known coordinates. A UNIT team will meet him there, and they will...

Well, they'll do _something._

Gwen finally calls him and tells him she's heading to the investigation site; when he tells her he can't reach anyone, she assures him she'll find out what's wrong. 

Half an hour later there's a spike in Rift activity; he sees Tosh's handheld downlinking, but God alone knows where they are. Three spikes in sensitive areas, the server hub and the police station and St Helen's hospital. He hesitates; he should stay in the Hub and act as central comm for the team, that's his job, but three spikes with the entire team off comm means all hands on deck. 

Gwen texts as he's checking the guns and strapping them on any old way he can -- shoulder holster, two thigh-straps, one on his left ankle. Stun gun in his right pocket. 

**get out**

and a second later

**get out get out get out**

He checks the calendar. Yep, it's four weeks from the last time the world nearly ended. Right on schedule. 

This, no doubt, is going to be a long day.

**TWOOD NICHOLAS: am out how to help where to go?**

**away from hub, police station, CJH**

**TWOOD NICHOLAS: police copy. request status when convenient**

**O uninjured T brkn arm G with RW both safe CJH ok, IJ**

**TWOOD NICHOLAS: Status of IJ, when convenient.**

**dislc shldr ok now john hart at hub, IJ.**

**TWOOD NICHOLAS: am at police. sr. officers dead. orders plz wtf**

**wtf fitting. wait for gwen, IJ.**

**TWOOD NICHOLAS: standing by**

Nicholas is useless at the police station; they don't know who he is and don't care, so he's grateful when Gwen sends him out with the rest to knock on doors, to try and salvage what he can from the city. He hardly remembers it later, but that's not because he was in shock; he's been trained for this, and Torchwood takes over, guiding his movements and his decisions. 

He saves eight or nine lives. Shoots about twenty Weevils. Secures an entire section of the city and stops a small fire. Goes for nearly two days without sleep, without summons, blindly obeying his commander's last orders. 

It's not that he was in shock.

**nicholas come home now**

**TWOOD NICHOLAS: can't**

**nicholas please come home**

**nicholas please answer**

**TWOOD NICHOLAS: ok done now on my way**

It's that when he returns to the Hub, exhausted and grease-smudged and feeling sort of triumphant in spite of everything, when he comes down the steps and through the cogwheel door, the world changes. 

Jack and Ianto and Gwen are standing in the Hub, huddled together, and the room smells of blood and gunpowder. Jack turns slightly. 

"Nicholas," he says. Nicholas glances down. There's blood on the floor. 

"Where are Owen and Tosh?" he asks. 

***

Jack's Handwriting: ~~_MOST IMPORTANTLY: We're all in this together. Let's make sure it stays that way._~~ _The end is where we start from._

Nicholas sends Gwen home to her husband and, through a haze of exhaustion, prepares food and tea for Ianto and Jack. Ianto comes and stands beside him for a while, not speaking, just standing, presence. Presence in the face of death. 

Nicholas really liked Tosh. Owen wasn't so bad either. He got a lot more tolerable after he died. 

Ianto takes the food and tea from him and doesn't meet his eyes. "Are you eating?"

"No," Nicholas answers.

"Jack's in his office. I'll bring the food up. You should rest."

Nicholas nods.

"But you won't, will you, Nicholas." Ianto inhales. "There are a lot of bloodstains in this Hub. Most of them you can't see. It won't care if there's one more for another day."

"I'll care," Nicholas says. "I want to, Ianto."

Ianto nods. "Go on then."

Nicholas is on his knees with the bleachy water and the brush, scrubbing Tosh's blood out of the cement. He is in the medical bay, scrubbing it off the tiles. He is scrubbing up hints of footprints where -- that's Gwen's trainers, those are Jack's boots, Ianto's boots -- someone has trod in her blood. 

He doubles over, arms around his waist, and makes one low, keening noise of pain. Just one, and the little tiled chamber will swallow the noise so that Jack and Ianto don't hear. 

***

_Gwen is not allowed to touch the coffee machine._  
 _Gwen's handwriting: **You're a bastard, Ianto.**_  
 _I love you too, Gwen._

They reel in shock for days, it seems, though there's hardly time to think; Nicholas sleeps in bits and snatches, constantly collating reports from the city, trying to assemble what happened, to make some kind of jigsaw sense out of the chaos that struck Cardiff. His mum often wakes him, calling long-distance from Newcastle, checking four or five times daily to be absolutely certain the Terrorists Didn't Hurt Him. Amy calls him too, but she's part of another life, and he tells her he's okay and then stops answering her calls (so she calls his mum, who calls him again, and the vicious cycle starts over). 

Jack is never far from the tattered remains of his team. Nicholas doesn't think he's seen him alone since -- since the world ended, and then somehow didn't. He stands close to Ianto as they work to repair the computers, or hovers around Gwen as she monitors the police reports and passes them on to Nicholas. Jack sits with Nicholas as both of them work, elbow to elbow, their soft breathing the only sound in the conference room. Jack has new shadows in his eyes. 

But over time the phone calls taper off and Jack stops hovering, and Gwen stops crying every afternoon right at three-thirty (her and Tosh's coffee-run time) and Ianto starts going near the medical bay again. He wouldn't, at first. 

"I've been thinking," Ianto says to him quietly, leaning on the railing of the balcony outside Myfanwy's nest. Nicholas has been feeding her, lately, and he likes to take a few minutes each day after feeding-time to look down on the Hub and keep himself from falling to pieces. 

"About?" Nicholas asks.

"We can't go long without a medic," Ianto says. "Or a technician. Really, honestly, I mean -- Gwen has plenty of organisational skills and she's good with the computer, and I'm pretty handy, but -- "

He stops, as if someone is pressing hard on his chest.

"You think you and Gwen were more expendable," Nicholas whispers. 

"Don't start on me with survivor's guilt, Nicholas, I could write the book. In terms of skill sets, we _were_ expendable. Torchwood could do without me. Especially now we've got you trained on the coffee machine," he adds, with a small smile, and Nicholas smiles back. "But we'll need a medic, and Jack and I have reached the limit of the repairs we can do without To -- without a technician."

"We need to hire new people."

"Yes."

"Jack's not going to agree to that, not so soon. Gwen'll back him to the hilt. _Time to heal_ and all that."

"Jack was a soldier. He knows we need to fill our ranks. I think we can lure Martha away from UNIT, through guilt if nothing else. And...well, I have a few contacts I can speak to about the engineering side." Ianto ducks his head. "But you're right. He won't agree. He's also human, he's not perfect, and for him it's too soon."

"So what do we do?"

"I don't know," Ianto says. "I was hoping you would."

"Sorry. I'm just the pterodactyl-handler." Nicholas doesn't move as Ianto rests his forehead against his shoulder. Perhaps he's seeking contact or comfort or something else; Nicholas just likes the weight of another person depending on him. "We just have to keep...changing the bandages. Cleaning the wound. Healing. Things will feel more normal soon. I hope. Gwen laughed today."

Ianto is smiling, though Nicholas can't see it. He just knows. "We keep healing," he agrees.

"And I'll give Martha a call," Nicholas adds.

***

_JACK I TOLD YOU ABOUT LEAVING ALIEN LIFE FORMS IN THE FRIDGE._

The first time he hears Jack laugh -- _after_ \-- Nicholas has to put down the tray he's carrying and lean on the desk for a minute, but it's not a bad thing.

It's how he knows they're going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on Polari: Polari is a "cant" or offshoot of a language, used by carnies at the turn of the century. In the later twentieth century it was absorbed into the British gay subculture as a form of slang. The vocabulary Jack uses is a combination of Polari and "pure" Cockney rhyming slang. As with many cants, the literal meaning of the translation is somewhat corrupted if intent is not taken into account, so the translation below is accurate but not literal. 
> 
> (Referring to Ianto) _Look at my pretty boy, my young boy, his beautiful hair, his beautiful body._ (Referring to Tosh) _Look at my small, pretty woman with intelligence to spare._ (Referring to Nicholas) _And the good face of the new little one. Look at his face, look at his lovely clothes, his legs in those jeans. A child playing with the big kids, but bright as the sun._ (Generally) _I love all my people, not a bad brain or a dull eye among them._
> 
> For more information on the study and vocabulary of Polari, you can [see my research here.](http://community.livejournal.com/commonplace_sam/2194.html)


	4. Chapter 4

_Scalpels are not steak knives. Scalpels are not letter openers._

"It's not that we need a medic," Nicholas tells her on the telephone. "If we just needed a medic we could find someone else. We need you, Martha. Jack needs you."

"I can't just pick up my life and move to Cardiff," Martha replies, but she sounds uncertain. "I have a boyfriend and a reasonably sane, relatively safe job."

"Yeah, I know. But Jack needs you."

Nicholas isn't ashamed he used that ploy; it worked, which is what matters, and a week later Martha shows up and startles the hell out of Jack, striding through the door like she owns the place and informing him, rather than asking him, about her transfer from UNIT to Torchwood. She invades Owen's -- invades the medical bay, rearranging it to her own liking, learning the computer systems and easily memorising the various codes and passwords. 

Jack is skittish and uncertain, watching her, but she deflates every self-important objection he raises and scorns every attempt at suggesting that perhaps she shouldn't give up the life she had for Torchwood. Martha, Nicholas realises quickly, is no stranger to sacrifice, not the pain nor the pleasure. And she kicks Jack around and has gentleness for his grief but no sympathy for his self-indulgence. Just what he needs to come out of the dark places he hides in.

Tom comes with her, and he and Rhys form a sort of Torchwood Widows club, which would be funnier if a quarter of Torchwood hadn't just died. 

***

_"Alien Tech Made Me Do It" is a one-time-only excuse._  
 _The emergency telephone line is for emergencies only. Emergencies include severe bodily harm, threats to the safety of the planet, family illnesses, and untoward events. Any telephone call that begins "I was just wondering" is automatically classified as a non-emergency._

And in the midst of Martha's invasive chaos and Jack's terrible coping mechanisms and Ianto's attempts to be everything they've lost and Nicholas's attempts to just keep everyone sane and fed, of course, in the middle of all this is when Gwen decides to be pregnant.

Well, okay, that's not entirely fair.

"I didn't _decide_ it," she protests, as they huddle over their drinks in the cafe and Ianto gently thuds his head down on the table. "It's one of those things."

"One of those things?" Martha echoes faintly.

"Rhys swears he didn't know the condom -- "

"O-KAY," Nicholas says loudly, half because he doesn't need to hear about Gwen's sex life and half because really, he doesn't believe it for a second. Rhys is smart and kind of shifty in a very obvious way, but fortunately for their marriage Gwen doesn't always grasp obviousness. 

"And I would think at least a cursory attempt at congratulations are in order," Gwen adds, looking injured. 

"Congratulations," Ianto says, forehead still resting on the table.

"It _is_ brilliant," Nicholas concedes. "I mean, new life into the world and all that."

"Please don't make me be your obstetrician," Martha says. 

"Have you told Jack?" Ianto asks, lifting his head. Gwen gives him an uncomfortable look. Ianto nods and places his head on the table once more. 

"I thought I'd sort of...find out about procedure first," she says. "We have procedure for alien shapeshifter egg babies, we must have a procedure for old-fashioned human ones."

As it turns out, Gwen doesn't have to tell Jack. Two days later, while she's still trying to decide how, he _smells_ the hormone change on her. 

"You're benched," he says, and then he gives her a huge hug and the biggest smile Nicholas has seen since he joined up. "Go make us some coffee."

Gwen gives a little giggle until she realises he's serious, and Nicholas is amused by her face until he realises what that means for him.

"Oh, no no no no no," he says, as Jack advances on him. "You might be able to pull that on Ianto but not on me."

"All hands on deck," Jack replies, giving him an almost casual shove that knocks him flat on the ratty sofa. He picks up a newspaper, rolls it, and taps him on the shoulders. "By the power vested in me by Torchwood and my own incredible charisma, and out of sheer desperation, I hereby declare you a Torchwood field agent."

"I never got a ceremony," Ianto complains. 

***

_Until we have learned the alphabet, we are not allowed in the archives._

"So, that could have gone worse," Ianto says.

"Ianto," Nicholas replies, and Ianto looks at him. He's covered in gore (not his, so that's more or less okay) and his hair, which he _was_ saying needed a trim, is singed on the ends. "How could this have gone worse?"

"The first time they took _me_ out in the field, I almost got eaten by cannibals," Ianto replies, and his eyes cloud over. "That was not very fun."

"Oh," Nicholas says.

He keeps a little score in a corner of the whiteboard:

TIMES NICHOLAS HAS NOT BEEN KILLED: ~~IIII~~ II.

It makes him feel better.

***

_Ex-time-traveling ex-partners are not allowed to touch the guns. They have their own guns, and too many of those to start with._

"Well," Ianto says, "this is the worst idea in an illustrious history of Torchwood's bad ideas."

"I don't know," Martha answers. "He's kind of cute."

"You're not allowed to shoot him," Nicholas reminds Ianto, who is quietly seething, as Ianto does. It's almost totally indistinguishable from many of Ianto's other emotions, including quietly being happy, quietly being unhappy, quietly eyefucking Jack when he thinks they aren't looking, quietly preparing coffee, and quietly bleeding out. Ianto is not exactly an open book a lot of the time. 

"I said we needed a computer tech who could work flexibly and follow Tosh's notes, and it should be someone we trust," Ianto says.

"Two of three," Martha shrugs.

"He paralyzed me and threw Jack off a roof," Gwen points out.

" _And_ he molested me with a handgun," Ianto adds.

"He _shot me_ ," Nicholas reminds them. 

"Jack says he'll behave," Martha replies uncertainly.

Nicholas doesn't like John Hart any more than Ianto does, but he has to admit that Jack has a point. Nobody in existence in the early twenty-first century is going to be as skilled with Torchwood's organic, hasn't-actually-been-invented-yet computer mainframe. Hart, on the other hand, actually used the Rift Manipulator to Manipulate the Rift, which nobody else has managed to do without disrupting causality. 

Nicholas's last job before Torchwood was butler and general house-manager for a wealthy young man who liked to sleep around on his wife. Nicholas sort of misses the days when the most uncertain part of his life was whether or not there'd be a strange woman in his employer's bed when he brought in breakfast in the mornings. 

Up above them, Jack and Hart are standing on the mid-level walkway, talking quietly. Jack looks like he's laying down the law and Hart doesn't look very happy about it, but Hart is trapped here now and unlike Jack, Hart is not eternal. 

And this is how they rebuild their team: Jack Harkness, immortal ex-time-traveler, John Hart, immoral ex-time-traveler, Dr. Martha Jones, former companion of the Doctor, Ianto Jones, survivor of the slaughter at Torchwood One, Gwen Cooper-Williams, trained police officer...and Nicholas. 

Former butler. 

"Well, this is...primitive," Hart says, returning to floor-level and examining what they've managed to salvage from Tosh's workstation. He sighs. "All right. To work. You, blondie, with me -- "

He's stepping forward to gesture Nicholas over to help him, but Ianto puts a hand on Hart's shoulder and shoves him back. Hart looks equal parts annoyed (as if a toddler kicked him in the shin) and startled.

"His name is Nicholas," Ianto says, hand on his sidearm, and Gwen stops Jack from interfering. "And my name is Ianto. Not Eyecandy, not Office Boy. If these facts are too overwhelming for you, I'd be happy to beat them into you."

There is a long moment where they look at each other but Ianto has spent too much time around Gwen and Jack, champions of the meaningful stare, to back down. 

"Ah," Hart says. "I remember. Your pet." He gives Nicholas a look that goes from shoes to hairline. "Nick?"

"No," Nicholas says.

"Nicky?"

"Hell no."

"Right. _Nicholas_ with me. The rest of you, leave us alone for four days."

Hart is actually really good at this stuff, and when he gets interested in something it's an obsessive, world-eclipsing interest. Nicholas learns a lot just watching him and Hart hardly speaks to anyone else until the computers are back at about 120% capacity of what they were before. 

This might work. Jack is probably out of his mind, and Hart is definitely out of his, but if they can keep him occupied and housetrain him not to automatically try to fuck or kill everyone he meets, it might work.

***

_Martha's scalpels are also not sex toys. Get your own._

Ianto begins keeping a running list of Things John Hart Is Not Allowed To Do in the spot on the whiteboard where Nicholas used to keep tally of times he didn't die. 

1\. Kill anyone not directly threatening someone.  
2\. Kill anyone because it's easier than incapacitating them.  
3\. Talk to Ianto unless absolutely necessary.  
4\. Leer at Martha.  
5\. Leer at Nicholas.  
6\. Leer at small animals or plants or pieces of machinery or any items of food or furniture.  
7\. Ever go to a rugby match again.  
8\. Attempt to instigate orgies.  
9\. Write software superviruses "just in case".  
10\. Blow up anything that does not absolutely require being blown up.  
11\. Molest strangers without their direct invitation.  
12\. Consume illegal drugs in public.  
13\. Sing anything about Sausages, Hedgehogs, Sailors, Sport, or the concept of Sexy being Brought Back.  
14\. Steal Martha's medical supplies for any imaginable purpose.  
15\. Or any unimaginable one. 

But aside from all that Hart's pretty well-behaved, and Nicholas doesn't have to do field missions anymore, which is a huge relief. Jack keeps Hart on a short leash, and Nicholas notices that Hart is oddly apologetic around Gwen; he and Ianto are constantly at each others' throats but Nicholas thinks Hart is intimidated by Ianto, and mostly baits him to watch a pretty boy in a suit suddenly flare up into something precise and dangerous (and, it has to be said, kind of hot). Martha just laughs at Hart, but rarely with him.

Nicholas, protected at first by Ianto's possessiveness, interacts with Hart mainly to bring him food, to assist him with the computers, and to distract him when possible with puzzles or tasks. When Hart is distracted, he's actually kind of a decent bloke. Hart's learning.

Nicholas realises one day that Hart kind of likes him. And he might even like Hart, just a little.

***

_Inappropriate touching is to be kept strictly to after-work hours. This means you too, Jack._

It's a bad'un, Nicholas can tell when the team returns. He pours whiskey for Ianto and Martha and Hart, coffee for Jack, tea for Gwen, but Jack asks him not to hand them the cups. He lowers the tray and lets each person take theirs, instead. 

It was supposed to be a recovery job, so Gwen went out with the team because she was getting fretty at being cooped in the Hub, especially since her hormones are beginning to act up. This might have been a mistake, and looking at Jack Nicholas thinks Gwen's never going to get out of the Hub again until the kid is toilet-trained. 

Aside from the bloodshed (and there's always bloodshed), they've all caught a dose of a telepathic link-wave of some kind, the aftereffects of which are still creeping around in their heads, making them unable to touch each other but fully able to complete each others' sentences without thinking. 

Jack has managed to shield himself, which is good because nobody should have to live through what Jack's lived through even vicariously. The rest of the team isn't so lucky. Gwen and Hart both got a thorough dose of the roiling fury and grief that Ianto keeps locked down in the sub-basements of his mind, and Ianto took a blast of Martha's intense former traumas full-on, and Martha got both Hart and Gwen until her teeth rattled from the contrast. They're all quiet and they look sidelong at each other and try not to talk too much.

Except for Hart, who sits by himself at the far end of the table, head in his hands, and whimpers occasionally. 

The others look at him and Jack tries once to touch him but Hart pulls away and continues to sit there until they leave him alone, going back to their desks to write their reports. Nicholas brings him a second glass of whiskey, but he ends up putting it on the table next to the first untouched glass. 

John Hart killed Jack once, and shot Owen, and has inappropriate thoughts about poodles, and was instrumental in the disaster that burned Cardiff and got Tosh and Owen killed. Clearly he's never much stopped to feel any emotion over the many and varied cruelties he's committed before. While Nicholas feels it's only just punishment, he also feels compassion for Hart. 

So he kneels in front of Hart and reaches out, and Hart jerks away, but Nicholas reaches out again and touches his hands to Hart's throat, thumbs cupping his jaw. Maybe it won't work, maybe it will. 

The link-wave's aftereffects are still strong enough that Nicholas can feel it, though it's a one-way street and he gets nothing at all from Hart. But he digs into his own mind for his most boring memories, the enormous store of everyday experiences that Hart never actually has had. 

His face, creased with misery and pain, slowly smooths. Ordinary, Nicholas thinks, ordinary and harmless. This is my life on Earth; all my time linear, all my experiences confined to this place. This is my sense of wonder at things you wouldn't look twice at. These are my triumphs -- getting this job, getting into university, winning fifty pounds on a football match, losing my virginity. These are my tragedies, being dumped by my girlfriend and getting a low mark on an exam and missing a bus. Aren't they boring. Aren't they silly, compared to what you've seen. Aren't they real.

There's a little echo of the others in there; bigger tragedies, Owen and Tosh's deaths, and some stranger experiences too, getting bitten by an alien and even, yes, shot by John Hart, and meeting Jack for the first time. 

With that memory, Hart's eyes clear and he exhales, lifting one of Nicholas's hands to brush his mouth over the knuckles, then turning it over to kiss his palm in gratitude. 

"I didn't know," he says softly. "I didn't understand -- I've done things -- "

"You didn't look," Nicholas corrects, pulling back and standing. "Bet by this time next week you won't even remember. That's fine. You'll just be Hart again."

Hart looks at him as if he's about four years old. "I'll remember."

After that Jack lengthens Hart's leash a little, and in return Hart stops hacking into the CIA for kicks and harassing people on the street (unless they're really really gorgeous). Nicholas isn't certain, but he doesn't think it's his memories, which really were just the mental equivalent of a hug. He thinks Hart took the brunt of Ianto's experiences, and to see what Ianto has seen changes you. 

It seems as though John Hart has changed for the better. 

"So," he says to Nicholas one day, "Eyecandy's actually shagging Jack, huh? Don't suppose you'd help me install some surveillance cameras. I want to know if Jack's picked up any new tricks. Reckon Ianto's kinked, or do you think he's the virginal type? I vote kinky."

Then again, some things never change. 

***

_We will not taunt the police. It isn't nice to Gwen._

In Gwen's last trimester, her doctor declares she needs rest, preferably bed-rest, because of hypertension or something (Nicholas has long since learned to tune-out Gwen's pregnancy babble). They throw her a party in the Hub and invite Rhys and have Gwen's favourite Thai food, and Nicholas promises to bring her reports from the Hub twice a week and to drag Jack along at least half the time. 

He feels more sorry for Rhys than Gwen; Gwen'll get over it, and she knew she'd have to take some leave when the baby was born, but Rhys is going to have to put up with a restless, annoyed copper for two months even before the wailing bundle of joy arrives. Nicholas buys him some chocolate cigars and a huge book of Sudoku puzzles. Hart buys him a set of vibrating cock rings. Everyone agrees that, inappropriateness aside, the look of terrified incomprehension on Rhys's face is pretty priceless. 

"I don't know how you eat that crap," Hart says, gesturing at their food as he gives the fruit equivalent of oral sex to an apple. He refuses to eat any of the takeaway Nicholas buys, and in one of his more expansive moments Jack has told Gwen (which means he's told the whole Hub) that Hart was raised on a planet where processed food was not only nonexistent but forbidden. Hart cooks for himself or eats fruit, mainly, which is this weird monkish thing that Nicholas can't get past but Martha likes, because she eats mostly fresh food too. 

"You keep eating that processed bollocks, you'll die young," Hart continues. 

"We'll die young anyway," Ianto says, and the horrified look on his face means that he's had a brief moment of disconnect between brain and mouth. Jack's look of miserable resignation _hurts_. 

"A-ny-way, hi there faux pas, I have an idea," Hart says, lifting his feet from the conference-room table and leaning forward. Juice runs down his thumb and he licks it up before continuing. "The puppy doesn't want to go back to being a big dog, and while I know I'm worth two of any of you, we can't shrink the regiment again. Gwen's got a good-looking pal, let's hire him."

"PC Andy?" Ianto snorts. 

"He did all right when _someone_ blew up Cardiff," Gwen says.

"Under duress!" Hart protests. 

"Have I met Andy?" Martha asks.

"Curly-haired, wide-eyed, sort of sarcastic?" Hart says. "He called us about that short-term time-loop generator that kid was using to steal televisions with. God, you people are boring. Televisions, honestly."

"Oh right! He _is_ cute," Martha says. 

"Being a good cop doesn't mean he'd be good for Torchwood," Jack says. "There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't think he's really..." he waves a hand. 

"Why not? He knows enough to call us when something spooky's happening, and he's kept his mouth shut about it," Ianto says.

"Pretty mouth," Hart adds.

"You're not allowed to hire Torchwood employees because you want to sleep with them," Jack replies, and Ianto makes a significant throat-clearing noise. Jack doesn't look at him. "You can sleep with him on your own time."

"Nobody's sleeping with Andy," Gwen says, with a sort of horrified defiance. 

"Really, though, it wouldn't be such a bad idea," Nicholas ventures. "I talk with him all the time, he's not stupid."

Every head in the room swivels. Jack lifts an eyebrow.

"Well, who do you think gets everyone in line at the station when you lot make a mess out there?" Nicholas mutters. "Andy's good with people, and he copes well in emergencies. He's a bit clueless sometimes but that's hardly his fault, is it? It's not like we give him much to go on. I'm not saying he's as good as Gwen or anything but it would be handy to tap him for a few months, train him, send him back to the police when Gwen's ready to come back, and keep him in reserve for emergencies."

"Do _you_ want to sleep with him?" Martha asks.

"I wouldn't say no if he asked nicely," Nicholas replies. "But I'm pretty sure he's straight, so no joy there."

"It's so quaint, the way they say that, the Straight bit," Hart says to Jack. 

Jack's fingers drum on the table, thoughtfully, and they can all see him turning over the possible outcomes in his head. 

"We'll give him a week," he says. "End of the week, if I don't think he's up to it, it's retcon and back to the station with him."

"Is this how all your decisions get made?" Rhys asks Gwen. "By force of personality?"

"More or less," Jack replies, sighing. 

Hart winks at Nicholas, which is really disconcerting. 

"Oh my god," Martha says suddenly. "I'm going to drown in testosterone."

***

_We don't try on any alien jewelry unless Jack says it's okay._  
 _Jack's handwriting: **And as long as it doesn't look better on me.**_

Torchwood has changed so much since Nicholas joined. He wonders what Tosh or Owen would think of it now.

Hart is fiddling away at Tosh's -- at the central computer workstation, possibly plotting world domination or possibly just playing Portal, it's an even toss with Hart. He's given up the red jacket for a short leather aviator's coat with a fleece lining, which makes him and Jack look like some kind of historical re-enactment club when they're together. His sword hangs next to the monitor bank, and there's a set of throwing knives on the table.

Martha is playing techno at top volume in the medical bay as she dissects their latest specimen, which is hard going because the whole thing is white, including the blood and all the organs. She's having trouble identifying what is either a very mis-shapen heart or a heart with both kidneys still attached. Ianto's keeping her company and taking notes, which is part of his programme to exorcise the ghost of Owen that still seems to haunt the little room -- or maybe just haunt Ianto, who knows it was his idea to go to the reactor in the first place and thus it should be him who is dead. 

Andy, who thinks Martha's music is terrible, has his headphones in and is sitting at what is still ostentatiously Gwen's desk, her photos still hanging and most of her paperwork still in a pile on the corner. He's studying flashcards because he's not naturally gifted with machines and the computers still baffle him a little, but he's trying. He's wearing a metal band on one arm that nobody so far has been able to remove, but it's not his fault. It jumped him on his first field trip and doesn't seem to actually be _doing_ anything so aside from poking at it occasionally he serenely ignores it. 

Jack, as ever, is pacing, inspecting, exploring, tending, fiddling with plants in the greenhouse, whistling up at Myfanwy, touching every member of the team when he passes them. He touches Hart on the shoulder and it's obvious in the way he looks up that Hart loves him, though he never propositions him anymore. Andy gets a hair-ruffle and flails in surprise, and Jack grins at him. He rests his chin on Martha's shoulder as she cuts, one arm coming around to point out an interesting bit of white in the mass of white. He trails his fingers up the nape of Ianto's neck which, from the way Ianto's face changes, he might as well have thrown him down and blown him right there. He cups Nicholas's elbow for his attention, asking if he can have another coffee. 

Jack is eternal. It's only the faces around him that change. 

***

_We will always make every attempt to keep our perspective and if we can't we will find someone to keep it for us._

"You live in a kitchen," Nicholas says, as Hart unabashedly and nakedly looks for his clothing. 

It's an old cafe Hart bought (probably with stolen money) and there's a bed in the pantry and a lot of scary-looking computer equipment on the central table. Nicholas jingles his keys; Hart is taking his time and Nicholas really just wants to pick him up and go because Gwen might be having the baby _right this minute_ and everyone wants to be there and why doesn't Hart have a car? He has six gas burners and a pasta station, after all.

"Yeah, well," Hart replies defensively. "Lots of outlets, and I like to cook."

"You live in a kitchen!"

"It's just a place to sleep," Hart says. Which is kind of how Nicholas and Ianto view their flats, but still, at least they live in flats.

Nicholas looks at him as he buckles his belt and pulls his coat on, and thinks, _You were destined for Torchwood, John Hart._

They reach the hospital with ten minutes to spare, and Jack's eyes are wide and kind of baffled when they're finally allowed to crowd around Rhys and the screaming giant sultana they've decided to name Bethan. Nicholas glances down; Jack is gripping Ianto's fingers tightly. 

"Hallooooo, beautiful," Andy says. "Who's a pretty baby?"

Nicholas rolls his eyes. Of the many things Bethan may turn out to be, she is not currently a pretty baby at all.

Hart wanders off, bored, which will be his pattern regarding Gwen's spawn; it's not that he doesn't like babies, it's just that they hold zero interest for him because he can't shag, eat, or annoy them. Even Hart has his boundaries.

"Please can I hold her?" Martha asks, beaming at Rhys, and Rhys eases her into Martha's hands. 

"Look, you," she says, cradling Bethan's head with a doctor's care. "I'm Martha. Either of your parents give you trouble, you come talk to me, okay? That's John, don't ever talk to him, and that's Ianto who's not as scary as he looks -- "

"Martha!" Ianto frowns. 

"And that's Jack, don't let the big coat fool you. This is Andy, you got him his job, he owes you sweets for life." 

Andy doesn't even hear her; he's waggling his fingers at the baby, and Nicholas will be embarrassed _for_ him because he is being a huge girl. 

"And that's Nicholas, who will probably end up on nappy duty so be nice."

"That was _not_ in my hiring contract," Nicholas says to Ianto.

Jack looks terrified but he lets go of Ianto's hand and lifts his arms questioningly, glancing at Rhys. Rhys nods, because Rhys knows that some part of everything in his life will always belong to Torchwood, and Jack bites his lip as Martha puts the baby in his arms. 

"Sometimes I forget why we do it," Jack says quietly. Nobody needs to ask what he means. "Sometimes I forget. Little humans in all their ordinary little lives, reaching for the stars."

Bethan obediently flails an arm, and Jack laughs brokenly. 

"Grow up strong," he says, and kisses Bethan's forehead and gives her back to her father, who beams at her and carries her away. Jack watches them go.

"Bored," Hart announces, tapping something out on a PDA in his hand. "It's all accidental chemistry and DNA soup anyway. She'll probably get his brains and her teeth. Let's go drink."

***

_If it's alien, it's ours._

And then the Doctor turns up and things go to shit. As, Ianto tells him, they generally do. 

But when the smoke clears (fortunately not in Cardiff this time but in Newport, where they were investigating disappearing rugby players and the Doctor was coincidentally trying to break up an interstellar sex-slave industry, apparently this kind of thing is a hobby for him) the Doctor gives them all a once-over and tells them they did all right for humans. Which from the Doctor is high praise.

Nicholas commandeers the local police station's canteen under the authority of Torchwood and while Gwen phones Rhys to let him know she's all right and coo at Bethan, Ianto helps Martha patch up Hart's gunshot wounds. Jack has eighteen different law-enforcement and military officers to sort out, which he is doing with his customary charm and bluntness, and the Doctor is sitting around looking a bit forlorn in the midst of all this heaving _humanity_ and also kind of miffed that Martha isn't paying him more attention.

Nicholas makes tea and then, because he can, a huge platter of fried eggs and toast. 

The Doctor keeps staring at him. Especially when he sets some of the egg and toast down in front of him and pours him tea. 

"Thanks. What are you doing here?" the Doctor asks him.

"Erm," Nicholas says, because he's not used to aliens being so polite, where "polite" means "not pointing a gun at him". "I work for Torchwood."

"No, I mean, at Torchwood. You seem awfully normal for Torchwood."

Nicholas just smiles and moves on to Ianto, who looks like he could use some coffee and also maybe heavy drugs. 

"That thing you did," the Doctor continues, following him. "With the ball. That was interesting."

Somewhere in space there is an alien slave-ship with a rugby ball lodged firmly in its thruster engines, and because of said rugby ball, it is drifting helplessly. Which is okay because most of the aliens who used to use it are dead.

"Played at school," Nicholas says, and nudges the Doctor to one side as he dabs some toast in the runny yolk of one of the eggs and offers it to Hart, who is bitching loudly and maybe this will shut him up. 

"How'd you know where to throw it?"

"We're not idiots, Doctor. Will you _please_ stop, I'm trying to bring comfort and nourishment to these people," he adds, annoyed, as the Doctor gets between him and Jack, who is gesturing furiously for some of the coffee while he shouts into his earpiece about Torchwood's jurisdiction being the _Earth_ , and you're _welcome_ by the way for saving it from certain destruction.

Martha is watching Nicholas now too. 

" _What?_ " the Doctor asks. 

"I asked you to move, because I'm trying to work and you are in my way," Nicholas retorts. "And, incidentally, I am deeply unimpressed by your shoes. You should wear boots if you're going to be running around wet sports arenas."

The Doctor doesn't look down, but Nicholas catches a moment of uncertainty. 

"I helped save the world," the Doctor points out. 

"Yes, and aren't you about due to bugger off now? That is what you do, isn't it? You're making Ianto twitchy," Nicholas retorts. "Jack says you don't do domestic."

"I _can_ do," the Doctor protests. "Besides, I'm waiting for Jack."

"Fine." Nicholas places the plate of food in the Doctor's hands. "Make yourself useful in the meantime."

Then he sort of passes out, because he didn't really think the scrape on his leg was much to worry about but apparently it nicked some major blood vessel and he's been bleeding into his shoe without noticing. 

***

_We will always remember to wear clothing appropriate to the workplace ~~Hart~~._

When Nicholas wakes up in hospital, which is a pleasant change from "on the floor of the Hub" or "in a field somewhere" or "in an alley that smells of Weevils", the Doctor is still there. 

Well, not _there_ , Martha and Jack are actually there in the room, and Nicholas vaguely recalls that he had a crush on Martha, as she lifts his leg and examines it and asks him if he feels much pain. Jack rubs his shoulder reassuringly.

"Gwen's gone back to Cardiff, but the rest of us are staying in Newport for the night," he says. "The doctors say we can take you back to the hotel, if you want."

"Can I get drugs this good at the hotel?" Nicholas asks, examining the IV drip in his arm. 

"No," Martha says, grinning. "But the food's better."

"Up I go, then," Nicholas agrees, and lets Martha take out his IV and help him to stand. He's about to ask if he can please have some clothing, because Jack is casually eyeing his legs in the hospital gown, when a shadow appears in the doorway. 

"Brought you some shoes," the Doctor says. He offers a pair of black hi-tops, almost shyly. Martha seems to find this amusing for some reason. "Yours got sort of manky and, well, that was somewhat my fault. Funny thing, actually, I found out there's a setting on the screwdriver that adds traction so if you -- "

"O-kay, let's find you some trousers," Martha interrupts. They're standing almost defensively in front of him, between him and the Doctor, and there's some weird chess game going on here that Nicholas doesn't get and is too tired to try for. Martha wanders out into the hallway and then it's just him and Jack and the Doctor. 

"Jack, could I have a word alone with -- "

"No," Jack says firmly.

"But I wanted to -- "

"No," Jack repeats. The Doctor looks annoyed. Nicholas leans on the bed and flexes his leg experimentally. Oh. Ouch. 

"Listen, he did bring me shoes," he says to Jack, who shoots him a _seriously, did you just say that?_ look. "I'm a big boy, Jack, I can deal with one reasonably polite alien."

"On your own head, then," Jack says. "Just remember what happened to me."

This seems to cut the Doctor deeply, somehow, but Jack points a finger in his face, tells him to behave, and sweeps out. They stand there in silence for a minute.

"D'you know what the Karsiphon Construct looks like?" the Doctor asks.

"I don't even know what it is," Nicholas replies.

"Want to find out?"

Nicholas narrows his eyes. "What?"

"I'm a traveler. I travel. Whoosh," the Doctor adds, making a little airplane-taking-off gesture with his hand. "In space, and time too if I want to. Footloose, that's me."

"So it's something out in space," Nicholas says.

"Yeah, sort of. And about ten thousand years in the future. Ten thousand? No..." the Doctor looks up, calculating in his head. "Eight thousand nine hundred and fifty-six."

"Oh, is that all."

"Yes, well, it's this enormous office building in space. Just sort of floating there. Nobody knows where it came from or who built it, but it looks _amazingly_ like the Gherkin and it's totally filled with cubicles. Down to the staplers and the paperclips."

"Alien paperclips?" Nicholas's lips twitch. The Doctor beams.

"They have six loops instead of three," he says solemnly.

"Well, for more efficient clipping."

"You could test that for yourself," the Doctor offers. Nicholas tilts his head. "My ship's just outside."

"I've got eight stitches in my leg," Nicholas says.

"Now or never, Nicholas the Domestic," the Doctor replies. 

"Bollocks," Nicholas retorts. The Doctor's eyebrows raise. "You travel in space and time, three days while I think it over isn't going to kill you. Go do a walking tour of Newport and see a few films and stop being such a bloody dramatic enigma."

The Doctor's mouth makes a small 'o' of surprise. 

"You remind me of someone I used to know," he says. "Your surname's not Tyler, is it?"

"No," Nicholas replies. "Now fuck off, Doctor, so Martha can bring me some trousers. If you're still hanging about Cardiff in three days I might say yes. If you aren't, well, I have Torchwood."

***

_A reminder to all: We do not steal alien tech for our own nefarious purposes._

The paperclips really do have six loops, but they're not any more efficient, as it turns out. 

Nicholas has just enough time to ponder this mystery of the universe before the occupants of the office building come back from their decade-long lunch break (they're slow eaters) and he and the Doctor are arrested as interstellar corporate spies and also for the theft of two staplers.

"Does this happen to you often?" Nicholas inquires, as they make a bolt for the TARDIS.

"You wouldn't believe," the Doctor replies. 

"Actually, I think I would," Nicholas gasps, diving into the TARDIS and hearing the Doctor slam the door shut behind them. 

***

_We will be properly suspicious of machinery which talks._

While they're in transit to wherever the Doctor is going next -- he says it's a surprise -- Nicholas explores, finding the kitchen fairly easily (there's a banana tree growing in one corner, and it has an ambulatory pot, which is weird and cool). He locates a bedroom nearby, the bed neatly made with military sharpness and the sparse decorations evidence that someone once lived here. It's probably not the Doctor; there are old-fashioned sepia prints on the walls, and the Doctor doesn't seem the type. 

Nicholas toes off his shoes, unbuttons his cuffs and collar-button, and lies down.

"Hello."

He starts up so suddenly he nearly falls off the bed, and when he turns there's Jack, oh god, Jack, standing in front of the door. 

"I'm Captain Jack Harkness," Jack says.

"Yeah, I know that -- "

"This is a recorded message to the next occupant of this room," Jack continues, and Nicholas's heart falls a bit. "I hope you're hot. Or at any rate think I am."

As the hologram-Jack talks, Nicholas notices differences. His hair is strange, and he's not wearing his coat or braces. And he looks...looser, somehow, more relaxed, happier. Intangibly younger. 

"Who am I kidding, of course you think I'm hot. Well, welcome to the TARDIS. I made this vid in the hopes that when I'm gone, some other companion will find this -- and you have. Well done. Feel free to redecorate, by the way."

"Are you voice-activated?" Nicholas asks warily.

"Anyway, since I can't actually give you the full rundown, I've programmed a little surprise into the TARDIS for you." Apparently not. "If you'd like to see it, follow me."

Holo!Jack turns and walks through the door, and Nicholas scrambles to follow, yanking the door open and catching up with him in the corridor. 

"In case the Doctor has forgotten to fill you in, the TARDIS is a ship that travels in time and space," Holo!Jack continues, moving along easily, hands behind his back. He stops talking every once in a while to look at where he assumed Nicholas would be standing. "There's usually a lot of running involved, so I hope you're fit."

He stops in front of a large bank of monitors hooked together in a little niche in the wall. At a wave of a hand, the monitors light up and an absurdly familiar-looking _webpage_ appears.

Oh, Jack, always the show-off.

"This is the Whenkipedia," Holo!Jack says. "My little joke. Hopefully you're from a time when Wikipedia was still around. And, you know, not from the time when it was a superentity ruling the galaxy. That wasn't a great century," he muses. "Here's the remote."

A small black stick shoots out of the wall, and Nicholas grabs it before it can fall. It has two buttons.

"Point at the link you want and click. Right-clicking saves it to your console in your room," Holo!Jack continues. "This will tell you anything we know about the TARDIS and the Doctor. It isn't actually all that much, but I've tried to make it as comprehensive as possible. There's a keyboard under the left-corner monitor; feel free to add anything relevant or amusing."

Nicholas clicks experimentally on a link on the sidebar reading PROFILES. 

"There I am," Holo!Jack says, apparently in a subroutine to judge by the way he flickers for a moment. "Handsome devil, huh?"

Indeed, Jack is there on the screen, a small photo to the side of one of three profiles. Username CPTNJACK. Jack's never been very original when it comes to things like that. Nicholas clicks on his profile and Holo!Jack goes into some kind of loop, endlessly standing at attention and occasionally rocking on the balls of his feet. 

_Captain Jack Harkness._  
Born 51st Century local time, Boeshane Peninsula.  
Boarded TARDIS 20th century local time, London.  
Former Time Agent. Excellent in bed. Or out of it.  
Entries created: 912.  
Entries edited: 35.  
Related Profiles: Rose Tyler. 

Rose Tyler is the next entry on the list, a pretty blonde woman with a slightly defiant expression. She boarded the TARDIS in the 20th century too, also in London; perhaps she and Jack were aboard together. She has 43 entries created, with 62 edited ones. 

"She's my honeysuckle rose," Holo!Jack sings, apparently the only vocal in this particular subroutine. Nicholas scrolls to the third profile. Martha, of course. Jack hasn't got a subroutine for her; apparently he either didn't think to write one or didn't actually travel in the TARDIS when Martha did. Martha has 212 edited entries, but only wrote four herself.

He jumps back to the main page. 

"Well, I'll let you explore," Holo!Jack says, looking where he imagined Nicholas would be, which is slightly to the right of where Nicholas actually is. "This hologram's pretty limited so there's not much more I can do for you, but if you need a user's guide to the Whenkipedia, just bring up my profile again."

"Thanks," Nicholas says, although he knows nobody can actually hear him.

"Oh, and if you want the crash course..." Holo!Jack waves his hand again and a new page appears. "These are the TARDIS house rules." 

Nicholas stares up at the page of rules as Holo!Jack disappears. All three former companions have edited the page, sometimes adding informative or sarcastic comments on rules they didn't write. It looks almost precisely like the whiteboard hanging up at Torchwood, down to the outwardly arbitrary commandments and the arguments no outsider would understand. 

He sets the remote down carefully, leans back against the wall, and laughs and laughs and laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for the Whenkipedia goes to **fyrdrakken** , who suggested the idea in the comments to the original Rules Of Torchwood Three.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Rules Of Torchwood Three: Nicholas Redux](https://archiveofourown.org/works/416842) by [Helice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helice/pseuds/Helice)




End file.
